Yet for the second straight day, Malinin did not give one of his gobsmacking performances. And Sato produced the highest free skate score of his career.
“I was like, ‘Okay, I’m the deciding factor. I need to just, you know, do what I need to do,'” Malinin said.
Malinin did enough to win with his lowest free skate score in his last five competitions, and the United States emerged with a 69-68 win over Japan, with Italy third at 60 points.
In the end, the skating of O’Shea and pairs partner Ellie Kam — fourth in the free, fifth in the short — provided critical points, especially after three-time U.S. champion Amber Glenn stumbled to third in the free skate.
Kam and O’Shea made only two minor mistakes in a career-defining free skate performance rewarded with a career best score.
“That was our goal stepping out there today, maybe taking one or two points of pressure off of the rest of Team USA,” O’Shea said. “And we did.”
Few things went as expected for Team USA. One that did was ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates winning both programs. They begin the individual ice dance competition Monday.
Chock and Bates were the only returnees from the U.S. team that initially finished in silver-medal position in the team event at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The medals were reallocated and the U.S. received gold in 2024 after Russian skater Kamila Valieva’s results were disqualified due to a positive doping test.
“The magnitude of the experience was not lost on us at all,” O’Shea said of the immediate ceremony.