This time, the Olympic figure skating team event is over when it was over.

Team USA claimed a second straight gold, and the medals were hung around the necks of the seven U.S. skaters who took part in the team event barely 30 minutes after the competition ended at the Milan Ice Skating Arena.

And it wasn’t over until it was over, coming down to a thrilling head-to-head contest between the final two men’s singles skaters, Ilia Malinin of the U.S. and Shun Sato of Japan.

“I was more nervous watching Ilia than I was skating myself,” said U.S. captain and pairs skater Danny O'Shea.

Malinin had lost the short program decisively to Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, who was replaced for the free skate by Sato, recently stronger in the longer phase of events than Kagiyama. That left some doubt about how the Quadg0d would handle the free.

“I had to sit around a few hours thinking why that happened yesterday in the short program,” Malinin said after the medal ceremony. ”It came to, you know, I didn't really understand the impact of the Olympic environment. I think I was kind of more in shock really just being at the Olympics for the first time.”

Yet for the second straight day, Malinin did not give one of his gob-smacking 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.

This time, all the drama had been on the ice, delighting a crowd that included tennis superstar Novak Djokovic.

“I did see Djokovic there, and it was honestly just so unreal,” Malinin said. “I've heard from everyone that after I landed my back flip, he was just out of words.

“And I was like, ohmigod, that’s incredible.  That's like a one-in-a-lifetime moment, just seeing a famous tennis player watching my performance.”

Malinin skated with more verve than he had while making his Olympic debut in the short program, cleanly landing four of his five quad attempts (botching a second quad Lutz). He piled up technical points with two impressive quad combinations in the bonus period (second half) of the four-minute free skate. He beat Sato in both the technical and component scores.

Sato also landed four clean quads in a steady performance to Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” He was overcome with emotion in the team box afterward, his tears as the scores came up clearly showing both disappointment and the physical and mental drain of skating under such pressure.

"In my eyes, everybody has done a gold-medal performance, and so it really doesn't matter what color medal we get,” said Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto, winner of both women’s programs.

Philip Hersh, who has covered figure skating at 13 straight Olympics, is a special contributor to NBCOlympics.com.