MILAN — Ilia Malinin wagged his tongue in joy halfway through his short program in the men’s competition Tuesday night at the 2026 Winter Olympics. He had just completed his three industrial strength jumping passes without a hitch, including two majestic quadruple jumps. Now he was flying past center ice, and his emotions got the better of him, and he was singing along with his music in the icy arena air. He was back, and he knew it.

The 21-year-old self-proclaimed “Quad God” had already lived a lifetime at these Olympic Games. He had experienced the interesting combination of being both tested and, now, rested. The Olympic team figure skating competition had challenged him in ways he hadn’t expected. But he had passed that test, leading the Americans to the gold medal by doing double duty in both the short and long programs when he hadn’t originally planned to. 

“I definitely felt like I was in a better zone this time,” Malinin said after he won the short program, setting himself up beautifully to win a second gold medal here on Friday. “It was, I think I want to call it, Olympic pressure, going out there the first time, hitting that Olympic ice and feeling the atmosphere, it was like, I didn’t expect it to be so much. 

“I mentioned earlier in the week that it took me a little while to understand what really happened, but now that I understand it, I took a different approach today. Really, just take things nice and calm, nice and slow, just relax. Then really just push the autopilot button and just let it cruise.”

An Olympic rookie, he is so much better off having gone through the team experience, which left him with “an incredible feeling,” he said Sunday night.

Now it was 48 hours later, and Malinin was on his own in the individual men’s event. On his own and back to his old self, the skater who has won four consecutive U.S. championships and the last two world titles.

His score? 108.16 points, a healthy five points ahead of Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, who had 103.07. With a long program likely packed with his record-breaking seven quads, Malinin is back to being the strong favorite to win the gold medal Friday night. How things have changed for him since his shaky short program in the team event over the weekend. 

“I definitely feel like I’ve reached where I want to be for the individual event, and just take a refresh and just nice and slow and calm for that free skate program. … and just let everything happen naturally.”

He now has more free time than he has had all week, with three days off between the short program and the long program (free skate). Asked how he is resting in his spare time, Malinin delightfully subtracted a couple years off his age.

“What would any teenager really do?” he replied with a smile. “I’m not really a teenager, but I feel like one a lot of the time, you know, just watching funny videos or funny fails, like video games and, you know, enjoying the Olympic Village. It’s such a cool place. They have their own gaming room as well. So I go there.”

This is the Malinin the skating world has come to know, a funny, laid back young man who loves to chat, almost always smiles and has the confidence to know how he’ll handle what’s next. For example, after the team competition ended Sunday, he predicted that nail-biter “really set me up for the individual event.” 

Turns out he knew exactly what he was talking about.

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Let me see if I’ve got this straight, because I’m a little fuzzy on the particulars. 

The most successful FCS program in the modern era, and the third-largest oil producing state in the country have joined FBS football. 

To this I say: What took so long? 

North Dakota State has joined the Mountain West Conference in football beginning this fall, and if you’re looking for some quick analysis, here it is: only Texas and New Mexico produce more oil than North Dakota, the black gold that can change everything in college sports.

Hello, private NIL. 

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in this upside-down world of get yours, it’s money talks and tradition walks. 

Indiana just won a national title. I still can’t believe it, so I’m going to write it again: Indiana, lovable loser of Division I football for decades upon decades, found the perfect coach and won the whole thing.

And is now set up to take over the sport with an elite coach (Curt Cignetti), a billionaire booster (Mark Cuban) and the largest alumni base in college sports (800,000-strong).

Texas Tech, which never before won an outright major conference championship, won the Big 12 in 2025 with a school-record 12 wins. Only a quarterback playing with a broken leg kept the billionaire-fueled ― and black gold-infused ― Red Raiders from doing more damage in the College Football Playoff. 

Duke, my god, Duke, won the ACC with a $4 million-a-year quarterback. And Steve Spurrier wasn’t the coach. 

Why in God’s green earth would North Dakota State not attempt to move up to FBS? 

The Bison — that’s pronounced Bizon, everyone — aren’t competing against the Power conference heavyweights, they’re competing against the rest of the Group of 6 for the one CFP charity spot. 

That immediately changes the calculus of it all. 

You’re not banging heads with established programs, you’re playing — ready for this? — Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Northern Illinois, San Jose State, UNLV, UTEP and Wyoming. 

I mean, really? 

None of those nine teams would’ve won 10 of 15 FCS titles from 2011-2025. And more than likely, not more than one ― if that.

Four coaches (Craig Bohl, Chris Klieman, Matt Entz, Tim Polasek) won national titles at NDSU in that 15-year span, a line of succession that’s almost unthinkable in this era of quick-change college football. The plan to win hasn’t changed much from when Bohl built the beast, and Klieman perfected it. 

They recruit players to fit their culture and system, and then develop them to reach their ceiling. Since 2020, eight NDSU players have been selected in the NFL draft. 

The 2025 national champion (that would be Indiana, everyone) had six. Six! 

Vanderbilt had three, Duke had seven, and if you want me to continue this exercise in Power conference draft futility, we’ll be here all damn day. Suffice to say, NDSU knows how to develop players. 

Yet that point brings us to the intriguing intersection of culture and cash, the very thing that could dismantle what NDSU has worked so hard to build. Or make it even more dangerous. 

Because if Polasek — an assistant for 10 years with the Bison before getting the job in 2024 and winning 26 of 29 games — can mold the valuable NDSU culture with a handful of impact starters from the transfer portal, this thing could get big. Quickly. 

Again, you’re not reinventing the wheel, you’re giving the hard-driving 18-wheeler a little more horsepower and a refined suspension with a handful of talented transfers. How do you get those transfers?

Oil money. 

If Texas Tech can do it, NDSU sure can. Lubbock is in the middle of nowhere; at least Fargo is across the river from Minnesota.

Also, the middle of nowhere, but you get the point.

Money changes everything. It breathes life into recruiting efforts, and extends the arm of possibility. It can turn a wildly underrated college town into a hotbed of FBS college football. 

Just like it did in Lubbock. Just like it will do in Fargo. 

It was only a matter of time before this inevitable happened. There was too much good going on at NDSU, and not enough challenge. 

There’s only so many times you can beat the brakes off everyone else, and still be satisfied to do it again the following season. Before the advent of NIL and free player movement, the climb to FBS made no sense for the team no one wanted to see on the nonconference body bag circuit.

NDSU has a 9-5 all-time record vs. FBS schools since beginning Division I play in 2004, including wins over Minnesota, Kansas State, Iowa and Iowa State. But think about this all-telling reality: the Bison have been playing FCS football for 21 years, and have been asked to play only 14 FBS guarantee games.    

There was nothing to gain, and more than likely everything to lose for anyone playing NDSU. Now the FBS has to play them — at least, in the Mountain West. 

If things progress how NDSU has envisioned, the Power conferences will have to deal with Bison cash in the transfer portal, and in a perfect, oil-driven private NIL world, on the biggest stage of all in the CFP.

The most successful FCS program of our time, and the third-largest oil production state in the country teaming up in the new private NIL world of college football. 

What took so long?

• Bea Kim is a 19-year-old newcomer on the U.S. women’s halfpipe team for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
• Inspired by teammate Chloe Kim, she is also a passionate climate advocate with Protect Our Winters.
• Kim is set to attend Columbia University to study environmental science.

LIVIGNO, Italy – The 19-year-old grabbed the microphone without hesitation, before looking to her right and her left at her older, more experienced teammates.

Assuredness is not something Bea Kim lacks, even if she is the newcomer on the United States’ women’s halfpipe team, which includes Chloe Kim – the event’s back-to-back Olympic champion – three-time Olympian Maddie Mastro and 31-year-old Maddy Schaffrick.

At the group’s news conference in the Italian Alps ahead of their qualifying round at these 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, the last question revolved around President Donald Trump’s criticism of men’s free skier Hunter Hess over Hess’ pre-Games comments about representing the United States (Trump did not properly reflect what Hess said). It’s a hot-button topic, one that can ignite social media and reach the halls of the West Wing. Shying away would have been a normal response.

Bea Kim didn’t.

‘I think there are a lot of different opinions in the U.S. right now. Obviously, we’re very divided,’ she said. ‘I personally am very proud to represent the United States. That being said, I think diversity is what makes us a very strong country and what makes us so special.

‘I think the four of us sitting here (Monday) are an example of that. We all came from very different backgrounds.’

If that’s not an example of the field Kim is playing, then perhaps it’s her passion for the environment and involvement in Protect Our Winters (POW), an organization that has led her to address the United Nations and speak at the White House regarding climate change. Or that she is bound for Columbia University in the fall. Or maybe it’s the fact that she could be the breakout star of a U.S. women’s halfpipe team that already features one of the biggest names in the entire delegation, who happens to have the same surname as her.

Bea Kim and Chloe Kim, along with Mastro, actually all grew up going to Mammoth Mountain in California and refer to it as their home mountain. Mastro and Chloe Kim have been her role models for a while, Bea Kim said.

“To be able to be on the same team as them, go to the Olympics together and kind of call them my friends has been just so special,” she told USA TODAY Sports in January through her sponsor, Delta Airlines.

The two Kims are not related, though, even if Bea Kim understands why it might be easy for snowboarding casuals to make the assumption. She actually gets a kick that two of her teammates have the same first name – different spellings, though – and that she and Chloe share a last name.

Bea Kim, who is Korean-Japanese-American, attended the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea − where Chloe Kim won her first of two halfpipe gold medals − with her parents, younger brother and grandparents. They spent time in Seoul, South Korea, and also visited Japan for the first time. It’s a special family memory.

“That was, I think, a pretty pivotal moment in my own career of seeing someone who looked like me just do something super incredible and be able to inspire me to kind of go after this career path,” Bea Kim said.

Chloe Kim was 17 at that time, with Bea Kim six years her junior.

“I mean, honestly, when I was that young, I don’t think I realized how incredible what she was (doing),” Bea Kim said. “I knew what she was doing was amazing, but I didn’t realize how young she was to be able to do something like that. And then now that I’m closer to that age, it’s definitely like, ‘Wow, that was insane.’”

In fourth grade, Bea Kim penned a poem shortly after she joined the Mammoth snowboarding team.

‘I am the gold medalist at the 2022 Winter Olympics,’ she wrote in the piece shared with USA TODAY Sports. ‘I cry tears of joy when the gold medal is placed around my neck.’

Bea Kim may have been a little premature in the premonition. But who says she can’t live up to the final stanza?

‘I dream of being,’ it reads, ‘the best snowboarder in the world.’

Bea Kim’s passion for outdoors, sport fuels academic ambition

Bea Kim’s passion for the outdoors and career in snowboarding is as full-circle as it gets, she said. Everything her family did – whether it was camping, hiking, snowboarding or surfing – took place in nature.

The family memories built are unforgettable and eventually led to competitive snowboarding, which led to dropping out of school and starting online school so that she could travel with the U.S. snowboarding team.

Those global treks have shown her the world, but competitive snow sports follow a similar travel schedule year over year, and athletes often wind up in the same places at the same time of year.  

“It’s really easy to kind of see how climate’s affecting all of everything,” Kim said.

From glaciers receding to fluctuating snow levels, it is impossible to ignore. She eventually made contact with the non-profit POW.

“They’ve really opened me up to a lot of new experiences where I’ve gotten to kind of share my story and just talk about climate and the snow sports industry and life as an athlete on the road,” Kim said. “So that’s kind of led me to Columbia where I’m going to study that hopefully.”

Kim’s sport is dependent on the weather – not just snow, either. If the winds are howling, it’s harder for her to do her job. If it’s dumping snow, it’s harder than a “bluebird day” when riders can actually tell the difference between the sky and the wall of a halfpipe.

“And those bluebird days are kind of a little bit further and far between now,” said Kim.

Two summers ago, Kim was scheduled to be in Australia for three weeks for a training camp. But it was the warmest season they had on record in years. She spoke to locals, they had never seen it that warm before. “Crazy weather” prevented the training group from even going up to the mountain, and Kim ended up leaving the camp early because the conditions made it unrideable.

The Olympic halfpipe site in Livigno was supposed to host a test event prior to the Games, but the lack of snow in the Alps nixed the dry run.

“It’s wild,” she said.

Bea Kim’s most crucial opponent? Herself

Bea Kim’s first competition in more than 11 months came at Copper Mountain in December 2025. On Christmas Eve the prior year, she underwent shoulder surgery after a series of subluxations destabilized her arm. The goal, she said, was to tighten the joints and muscles before the Olympic year.

Kim described her week at Copper as “actually a crazy little week.”

It was the first Olympic qualifier. The practice days leading into the qualifying round were tough. She was not feeling like herself at all.

“But once I dropped into the competition, I kind of was just reminding myself, ‘You know how to do this, your body knows how to do this.’ It’s all muscle memory,” she said.  

Kim is the type of competitor who believes the pressure of the competition makes her a better performer.

“It’s always kind of a testament to willpower, I think,” she said.

Kim finished third at Copper, which went a long way to securing her spot on the Olympic roster. To be on the podium in Italy, Kim will have to beat out her own teammates, an impressive international contingent with competitors from Australia to Japan to Switzerland and another opponent she’s quite familiar with.

Herself.

“I often say that my biggest competitor is myself, my own brain,” she said. “I think to make it on the podium, I need to really push myself to my limits and do things that scare me.”

All she knows is that she’ll leave everything in the pipe and won’t finish with any regrets.

“Hopefully that ends up standing on the box with a medal,” Kim said. “So, we’ll see. (I’ll) get back to you.”

STORRS, CT − The No. 1-ranked UConn women’s basketball team played Saturday’s game without top scorer Sarah Strong, who took the game off to rest.

‘We just want to make sure any tightness she might feel doesn’t become anything,’ UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. ‘She could have played.

‘It’s the college version of load management.’

Strong is expected to return on Wednesday, Feb. 11 against Creighton at Gampel Pavilion. Strong is averaging 19.2 points and 8.0 rebounds a game for the Huskies. UConn (25-0, 14-0 Big East) is looking to extend a 40-game win streak.

Ava Zediker, who scored 25 in a victory over Marquette on Sunday, is averaging 13.8 points for the Bluejays (12-12, 8-7 Big East).

UConn beat Creighton, 95-54, in Omaha on Jan. 11.

What time is UConn vs. Creighton?

The UConn Huskies plays host to the Creighton Bluejays at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Feb. 11 at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, Connecticut.

UConn vs. Creighton: Streaming

• Date: Wednesday, Feb. 11
• Time: 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT)
• Location: Gampel Pavilion (Storrs, Connecticut)
• Stream: Peacock

STREAM: UConn vs. Creighton

The Seattle Seahawks are celebrating the franchise’s second Super Bowl win with their fans, notoriously known as ‘The 12s,’ in a hometown parade on Wednesday.

USA TODAY Sports is providing live coverage of the parade beginning around 1 p.m. ET. You can watch the festivities live via the embedded video at the top of this page or on the USA TODAY Sports YouTube Channel.

The Seahawks beat the Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl 60 on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. It marks the franchise’s first Super Bowl win since the 2013 season, when Seattle defeated the Denver Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl 48.

Buy Seahawks championship pages, gear

What time does the Seahawks Super Bowl parade start?

According to the Seahawks, the parade is scheduled to begin with a trophy celebration at Lumen Field at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. local time), followed by the main parade at 2 p.m. ET (11 a.m. local time).

Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl parade route

The Seahawks’ Super Bowl parade route will run along 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle. It will begin at 2 p.m. ET at 4th Avenue and Washington Street, travel northbound on 4th Avenue and end at 4th Avenue and Cedar Street.

The 2026 version of the route is notably different from the 2014 route: it begins at the stadium instead of ending there. The parade route is just over two miles long through downtown Seattle and is expected to take two hours.

The city of Seattle expects between 750,000 and 1 million fans to attend the parade.

For information on road closures, click here.