MILAN — In December, before the U.S. figure skating championships, USA TODAY Sports’ Christine Brennan asked Ilia Malinin what seemed like an unfathomable question: Do you ever think about not winning the 2026 Winter Olympics gold medal?
It seemed silly. Malinin was figuratively being handed the gold medal before he even crossed the Atlantic Ocean. But to some surprise, it had crossed his mind.
“Sometimes, I have those thoughts a little bit,” Malinin. “It’s like everyone expects you to be so perfect, and really know what you’re doing all the time, but sometimes you’re not always perfect.
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‘You can have a day where nothing works out, and you kind of just have to go through that.”
What seemed like a preposterous thought turned into reality — on the dreaded Friday the 13th.
Malinin’s golden moment turned into disaster, with a tough performance resulting in an eighth place finish in the men’s singles, a result the entire figure skating world is still trying to understand.
Since his stunning falls, the entire world wondered what happened. He himself was still trying to figure it out. But one thing he consistently mentioned immediately afterward was feeling the immense pressure and the nerves — and it makes much more sense.
Although so many of us have dealt with sports pressure — of course, at varying levels — there’s nothing like Olympic pressure. It’s a feeling only Olympians can relate to, let alone when you’re a gold medal favorite.
He tried to treat it like every competition before, but the Olympics simply aren’t like any other outing. It’s a global event with a worldwide audience.
Almost all of us are not able to relate to Malinin — we can only try to understand.
“The Olympics, the magnitude of it, sometimes it’s overwhelming,” said Evan Bates, an ice dance skater and five-time Olympian.
Malinin started feeling the pressure in late 2025 as the Olympic season was beginning. At that point, he had won nine consecutive events, riding the momentum high. At the time, he felt like he could handle it and would see how he’d manage it.
He continued his tear with another Grand Prix final and U.S. title, seemingly untouchable. But the pressure was mounting, and it couldn’t be ignored.
“A lot of the times, it is a lot to handle when you have all the pressure, all the attention, all the focus on you to become the Olympic gold hopeful,” Malinin said on Feb. 4. “A lot of the time, I’ll have bad days where I think about that and it really shuts me down, and it really puts me in not the best moods.
“That’s something that everyone has to go through, and they have to find their way to motivate themselves or keep them together.”
You could tell there were some nerves in his short program of the team event, but he responded in the free skate to heroically earn the U.S. gold. Then the short program of the men’s singles was so great, there was no inkling of he’d falter.
But then came the hardest lesson of pressure and nerves: They operate on their own accord, and no matter how much you train, there isn’t much that can combat it.
All of it led to right before Malinin took the ice, where he said “all the traumatic moments of my life” flooded his head.
“It was really just something that overwhelmed me, and I just felt like I had no control,” he added.
It’s almost a coincidence 11-time Olympic medalist and seven-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles was inside Milano Ice Skating Arena to watch the performance. She has dealt with the mental struggles and pressures of this stage, famously when the twisties shortened her run in the 2021 Olympics.
The list of star American athletes struggling in the Olympics doesn’t end there, especially figure skaters, with Michelle Kwan in 2002 and Nathan Chen in 2018.
If there’s any takeaway from the struggles of Malinin and several other U.S. Olympians, this is far from the end. Biles returned in 2024 and captured three golds.
A lot can happen in four years, but Malinin will be 25 years old and likely still an elite skater. He wants to compete in three Winter Olympics, capable of making it to 2030. Should he make it to the French Alps at the next Olympics, it this would be an experience that will help him immensely. It could even be the difference in the him getting back to the top of the sport and finally becoming Olympic champion.
In Milano Cortina, we learned “Quad God” isn’t immortal. He’s just a human, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It may just be the lesson that kickstarts the redemption arc for Malinin.
