One of the biggest upsets out of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics happened during the men’s individual figure skating competition. Going into the games, the U.S.’s Ilia Malinin was the big favorite to take home the gold medal. Malinin gave himself the nickname the “Quad God” because he’s the only figure skater in history to successfully land a quadruple axel (four-and-a-half turns) during a competition.
Unfortunately, Ilia’s final skate in the men’s singles, the free skate, did not go as planned. He fell twice and made several technical errors. It not only cost him the gold, but a spot on the platform entirely. In the end Ilia finishing in eighth place. On Tuesday, Malinin appeared on Today to talk about what went wrong during a competition that he otherwise should have had in the bag. According to Ilia, the pressure of performing at the high-profile Olympics simply got to him.
“Honestly, it’s not a pleasant feeling. The most honest way to say it is it’s just a lot of on you, just so many eyes, so much attention,” Malinin said of the high expectations he felt at the Olympics. “It really can get to you if you’re not ready to fully embrace it, so I think that might be one of the mistakes I made going into that free skate was I was not ready to handle that to a full extent.”
Malinin said going into the day of his free skate, he was confident, but when he stepped onto the ice, he could feel the “amazing environment.” He added that the experience would affect how he prepared for the 2030 Games, should he compete.
“Of course, it didn’t go the way I wanted it to. … All I have to do is just learn from my mistakes there and push to see how I can improve in the future,” Malinin said, later adding, “I can take a different approach leading up to the next Games, hopefully.”
Malinin’s 156.33 free skate score in Milan was a far cry from his performances during the 2025-26 figure skating season. In four competitions before the Olympics, Malinin posted free skate scores of 209.78, 238.24, 228.97 and 215.78.
During the team event earlier in the Games, Malinin scored a 200.03 in the free skate, helping the United States win gold.
Malinin still has one more skate left at the Olympics, as he will perform at the closing gala on Saturday, an exhibition event. Malinin’s agent also told NBC Sports that Malinin still expects to compete at the world championships in Prague next month, an event Malinin has won two years straight.
Ilia also posted something to Instagram earlier this week that addressed the “vile online hatred” that had been directed at him during the games. I can absolutely understand how the pressure of the spotlight and intensity of the moment can get to even the most tenured professional athletes, let alone a first-time Olympic competitor. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can’t control your nerves. I’m happy that Ilia and Team USA won a gold medal for the team skating event and have no doubt that he’ll be back for his redemption arc in 2028.
I watched the men’s individual competition because I wanted to see how Malinin did. I also wanted to cheer on Maxim Naumov, whose parents died in the plane crash outside of Washington, D.C. last year. I knew Naumov probably wasn’t going to medal, but I was still emotionally invested in his story. Malinin’s performance and subsequent loss was quite shocking. You could tell how thrown off he was after the first fall. My favorite Olympics duo, Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir, had a very generous take on what went wrong for him. I couldn’t believe how many of the skaters fell overall during that final event! Kudos to Mikhail Shaidorov for his upset win. His performance really was quite masterful.
Photos credit: Udo Salters/Wenn/Avalon, IMAGO/Andre Weening/Avalon, IMAGO/Joris Verwijst/Avalon, Getty Images
He didn’t do the 4A seven times in one program, that wouldn’t be allowed, lol. You can’t have a routine with just one jump repeated seven times. He did seven quads in a program (the Grand Prix Final) but they were all different. Also, the next winter Olympics is in 2030.
Other than that, Ilia is very young, very talented and very determined, so I’m not worried about him, he’ll be fine.
Ok that’s removed from that part of the story
Yeah, it’s like quad axel, quad loop, quad toe loop, quad flip, quad lutz etc. The quad meaning 4 revolutions in the air, and there’s all different variations of jumps.
Quads are REALLY high risk, high reward. Falling happens a lot! My favorite part is the leg sweep at the end, it’s visual poetry after someone spins 3 or 4 times in the air.
Oh, that was my bad! I got the info from a portion of the People text that I didn’t include in the quote so as not to be repetitive. When explaining it, I didn’t realize I wrote one program as in one skate instead of one program as an event. Thank you for the correction! 🙂
I finally caught up on the mens skating last night obviously knowing how it ended and I did feel for the guy. Right through the British commentators were assuming he’d win and at the end described it as (something along the lines of) ‘the only sure gold in the olympics’. That’s some pressure! The olympics put you into a whole new public sphere.
I did shed a few tears as the winner was so shocked as he realised and the Japanese guy who got silver was also in tears – I felt SO bad for him when he gave everything in the team competition to try and get Japan the gold when really that wasn’t going to happen and he was crying at what he seemed to feel was his failure. I wanted good things for him too!
The silver medalist is Yuma Kagiyama, he did the SP in the Team Event. The guy crying happy tears and the one who skated the Free in the Team Event, is the bronze medalist, Shun Sato. He was very excited because he was sure he missed the podium. It was great seeing him so happy and all the skaters so supportive of each other.
Thank you! I knew I’d seen him before in the team event.
I forget sometimes that people like Tara and Johnny. They are on their best behavior for the Olympics but for figure skating fans they are terrible commentators (and I used to LOVE Johnny)
@Fig, I have always enjoyed them and the entertainment they bring to the commentary. I can see how people who actually know and following skating aren’t fans. Who do you recommend to follow for good commentary? (Also, at least tell me that people liked Scott Hamilton’s commentary?)
I can’t deal with Johnny and Tara. They start talking the *second* the program begins. You can’t even hear the music. They talk over the whole performance. At one point they started talking about what one figure skater likes to eat in Milan. Like shut the hell up and let us enjoy this. I don’t need random “fun facts.” And if Johnny says “Marshmallow-y” knees one more time, I swear…
It’s really frustrating to watch NBC stoke grand expectations for the athletes it wants gold out of. They want interviews right before you perform, right after you perform, they’re on you like white on rice.
After the ‘teams competition’where Ilia skated 2x, NBC was on him for not performing as well as worlds, asking him why like as if he failed. He helped them get gold ffs!! He’s 21 you %&$#, what were YOU doing at 21? The cycle of media expectations, declaring failures, and wanting “redemption” stories, is toxic to the athlete’s mental health and performance. They should back ALL the way off. They did Simone Biles so dirty that way in Tokyo.
Canadian here. After reading these comments, I’m very happy that I watch the Games on CBC. Great commentators and nothing is too sensationalized.
Same! Omg the NBC commentating has been vile. The USA women’s hockey game was commentated on by the Tkatchuk brothers (MAGA enthusiasts) who didn’t know a single thing about women’s hockey and talked about men the entire time. WTF. A friend of mine watched it in the states and was disgusted. Apparently Brady Tkatchuk was asked what he could learn about hockey from watching the women play and he pretended to not hear the question, after answering 100 questions about the men. Ridiculous to have MAGA commenting on women’s sports, and hockey at that, as hard as these women had to fight to be taken seriously and finally get a league this year (the PWHL). We had a totally different experience watching it in Canada.
+1x💯 CBCs coverage has been excellent. They’ve given equal time, coverage and commentary to all athletes, teams and countries competing and haven’t embarrassingly amped Canada. A friend of mine is stationed in the US and is watching on Peacock and is appalled at the coverage, I think she’s since switched to CBC as well.
I really felt for Ilia and have tremendous respect and admiration for his composure following his devastating loss, his grace kindness and class when he embraced and congratulated the winner and assured him that he’d worked for and deserved the gold. This is the Olympics and athletes at their best.
This reminded me of Michelle Kwan. She was under so much pressure at her Olympics and it really got to her.
The first time I ever saw his routine, my mouth dropped. The kid is amazing and usually makes the exceptional look effortless. I can only imagine the kind of pressure he was dealing with because it was something I will never have to face. Team Ilia all the way!
This reminds me so much of Nathan Chen’s first Olympics. He is insanely talented as well but his nerves just got the best of him. Then he came back and won gold the next time. Great things in the future for Ilya and he handled this with grace and class.
This reminds me of almost every North American skater (male and female) who has ever been favoured to win gold, with a few exceptions.
There’s a video that’s titled “Brian Boitano explains why Olympic mental battle is greater than physical” from USA Today.
I hate that athletes competing today have the added pressure from social media and the immediate emotional reactions from strangers online. No one needs that. Everyone needs to remember that athletes work hard dedicating their lives to pursue a dream. And that they’re also human with real emotions too. For people watching at home, we should cheer them on and be inspired by them. Not shame them when they don’t live up to OUR expectations.
💯. I wish that Jacksonville reporter Lynn Jones was at the Olympics to say “hold your head high” and ‘we’ve enjoyed your work all season, please keep it up” to all the athletes. A supportive Auntie and a golden retriever, everyone is a winner just to be there.
@Charlie, I’ll go check that BB video out. Thank you!
He had a really good lead from the short program. He could have still won ithe gold medal with a few mistakes, but I think he may have been aiming for perfection and history instead of just nailing his program mathematically.. I think his coaches should have had a back up plan where he could take the quad axel out (the most difficult jump since you’re rotating forwards) if he needed to, but maybe he had won so many competitions in a row it had never occurred to anyone to have a plan B. Except for Shaidorov (who was in fifth place), everyone fell so he still had a chance — but I’m not sure if everyone else falling threw him off. It’s kind of like he knew it was his to lose and maybe that also messed with his head.
I also think the team competitions should come after the individual event.
His performance and weird narration over instrumental music was an odd, and some would say, egotistical choice. The artistic integrity of his program was just off.
That said, looking forward to seeing him again in 2030. What a ride this Olympics has been!
I kind of agree here. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an amazing athlete and I could never in a million years possess his abilities, but it felt to me he was buying into his own hype. I didn’t realize he gave *himself* the moniker of “Quad God” but did notice him wearing a sweatshirt with it emblazoned across the front which, honestly, caused me to give him a little side eye. There’s confidence and then there’s letting your head get too big. He’s young and maybe this setback will bring him a bit of humility (I know he was under tremendous pressure, I’m looking at it from a more self-reflective angle).
Ooh, yeah. I really feel for him, I’ll be rooting for him these next few years, but giving yourself the nickname? Oof. I thought he was wearing 1 shirt ironically, didn’t realize it was twice (and not ironically, perhaps). Plus using his own voice for his free program…it’s a lot. Confidence is great, and I’m sorry for him that he had to deal with this on such a huge stage, but hopefully he learns and grows.
From the way NBC was talking about him, I thought he was Simone Biles-level of technical and could afford mistakes. But it seems like they overstated it? That’s a lot of pressure to put on anyone.
If I had failed on a jump, I think hearing my own voice would have irritated me. He might have been better offf picking something that he could get lost in musically (at least as a way to get over the mistake).
I do think other skaters are more artistic, although that seems to be in decline with the emphasis on jumping.
I happened to watch that “live” and what stood out to me was right before Malinin went on Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan’s coach whispered in his ear that he was going to at least win bronze and be on the podium. They had a close up on his face (what is with all the extreme close ups, has anyone else noticed that?) and it was so sweet because you could see that it took a moment to soak in that information, you could actually see him processing and then the look on his face was pure joy and astonishment. It was such a wonderful thing to witness. I always root for the underdog. Then Malinin went on and totally blew it and Shaidorov ended up winning GOLD!! He was flabbergasted! It was sweet.
For what it’s worth, I heard on the news that the ice was too soft and that’s why so many skaters fell. I was so impressed by Ilya when I saw him skate (that back flip was amazing!) And only 21!
Peacock had a channel to stream 3 events at once. When skating was on if you clicked on it, there was no commentary. It was wonderful.
Also, they need to keep them off their Socials during competition. Or have someone manage them to weed out the Haters. No one needs to voluntarily pollute their mental environment.
There wasn’t a single fall in the women’s finale earlier in the day. The French commentators were saying that perhaps the general mood in the men’s finale wasn’t that great and as they weren’t giving each other the same kind of support as the women did, the pressure got way too big for most of them. I thought that was an interesting theory given that everybody was skating on the same ice.