Ilia Malinin, U.S. win figure skating team gold at Olympics - ESPN

MILAN — Ilia Malinin beat rival Shun Sato in a head-to-head showdown at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Sunday night, helping the U.S. defend its team figure skating gold medal by breaking a deadlock with Japan in the final session of the competition.

The 21-year-old nicknamed the «Quad God» landed five quadruple jumps and scored 200.03 points for his free skate, atoning for his mediocre short program — at least by his lofty standards — one night earlier. Sato followed him with three quads in his program, but he could only manage 194.86 points, leaving the Japanese with a second straight silver medal in the team event.

The U.S. ended up with 69 points while Japan finished with 68. Matteo Rizzo delivered one of the best free skates of his career as Italy was trying to hold on to the bronze medal, allowing the host nation to finish third with 60 points.

Georgia wound up fourth with 56. It still has never medaled in any sport at the Winter Games.

The U.S. had a five-point lead over Japan after two days of competition. But the advantage dwindled to nothing when world champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara won the pairs free skate and Kaori Sakamoto won the women's free skate earlier Sunday night.

Malinin opened the men's free skate with a big quad flip, opted for a safer triple axel over his quad, and overcame a couple of mistakes along the way to finish with aplomb. The son of Olympic skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov ended with back-to-back combos, a quad toe-triple flip and a quad salchow-triple axel, leaving a crowd full of American and Japanese fans roaring in approval.

Sato did everything he could to give Japan a chance.

From his opening quad lutz to his finishing triple lutz, the Japanese star was nearly