MILAN — For Ilia Malinin, a terrible night was followed by a wonderful postscript.
The 21-year-old Quad God’s epic meltdown on the ice at the 2026 Winter Olympics has already been well documented. He fell twice, made mistakes on other jumps and finished a devastating eighth in the men’s figure skating competition. It was the worst performance by a gold-medal favorite in Olympic figure skating history. It was as bad as it gets for an athlete at the most crucial moment of a young career.
But what happened afterward? It was beautiful.
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Throughout sports over the years, in the aftermath of crushing defeat, athletes have reacted in different ways. Some keep it together. Others behave horribly. The names of those who have thrown helmets at lockers or destroyed tennis rackets or thrown golf clubs or berated reporters or just refused to talk at all number in the hundreds, perhaps thousands.
But Ilia Malinin? After spending significant time hugging and speaking with the surprising gold medalist Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, he walked purposely behind the curtains to the mixed zone interview area, where, just a couple of minutes after leaving the ice, he spoke calmly, politely and intelligently with NBC’s Andrea Joyce, fully answering the four questions she asked, including saying this:
“I was not expecting that, I felt like going into this competition I was so ready … maybe I was too confident that it was going to go well. … I think it was definitely mental, just now finally experiencing that Olympic atmosphere, it’s crazy, it’s not like any other competition, it’s really different. I’m still so grateful that I was able to put in this work and effort to get to where I am, but of course that was not the skate that I wanted.”
And his first thought when his music ended?
“I blew it, that’s honestly the first thing that came to my mind was there’s no way that just happened.”
Joyce thanked him for the interview, and he thanked her back.
Malinin then ran the gauntlet of the maze-like mixed zone, answering the same questions over and over again. When he reached the U.S. journalists, he answered everything again, but none of his answers sounded forced. He was patient and thoughtful. It was as if he was being asked about it all for the first time, offering new words and phrases to describe what he had just done.
‘The pressure of the Olympics really gets you,” he said. “The pressure is unreal. It’s almost like I wasn’t aware of where I was in the program. Usually I have more time and more feeling of how it is, but this time, it all went by so fast. … It just felt so overwhelming. I didn’t really know how to handle it in that moment.”
Malinin always has been respectful of the writers and broadcasters who cover him, and Friday night, arguably the worst night of his life, was no different.
His behavior was all the more remarkable when one considers how long it will be before Malinin gets another chance to compete on such a meaningful stage. Most athletes who have lost their temper after a defeat get to play another game or match in a few days or weeks. Even the Super Bowl loser has a chance to do it all again in 52 weeks.
But Malinin? He has to wait four years for another opportunity at the Olympic Games, making his performance after his on-ice performance so wonderfully memorable.
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