As the Quad God fell to earth, Norwegian cross-country skier ascended to greatness

Veteran sportswriter Richard Deitsch takes an international view of the Olympics.

The program began at 4:51 p.m. ET. It ended at 4:56 p.m. ET. What happened in those five minutes was the most shocking sequence so far at the Milano-Cortina Games. Ilia Malinin, the greatest male figure skater in the world, The Quad God, the surest bet for gold among all American athletes, fell apart on the ice in front of a standing room only crowd at the Milano Ice Skating Arena. 

“A reminder," said a shocked NBC announcer Terry Gannon, “that nothing is certain in sports. There is no such thing as inevitable.”

Tara Lipinski, the NBC figure skating analyst and the ladies gold medallist at the 1998 Games in Luxembourg, told the American audience that Malinin had lost an inconceivable 72 points with his jumping mistakes during his program. 

“I never thought this could happen,” Lipinski said  “I never thought he could be off the podium.”

Malinin, just 21, skated off the ice in disbelief, breathing heavy, dazed, shocked, as we all were. He finished in eighth place. The gold went to Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan. Japan's Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato won silver and bronze, respectively. It is Kazakhstan’s second-ever Olympic gold medal at a Winter Olympics

Malinin admitted what happened was mental. “That was not the skate that I wanted,” he told NBC. He said his first thought was, “I blew it. There is no way that just happened.”

The Games move on, as they always do. But as I write this close to evening time in Toronto, I cannot believe what I just saw.

One of the perennial joys of the Winter Olympics is the country of Norway, the Scandinavian hamlet of 5.65 million that always punches above its weight. Norway mints sporting icons on the