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