We are approaching the final days of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and we already know one of the biggest narratives of the 2030 Games: the redemption of Ilia Malinin.
Malinin’s fall to eighth place in men’s free skate last weekend has triggered both an outpouring of support from his peers and attempts at a postmortem to answer the question, «How does the best figure skater in the world fall off the Olympic podium?»
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Malinin attempted to answer some of those questions on «Today» Tuesday morning, describing his mindset the day of as positive:
«Going into that day, I felt really confident, really good. Stepping on the ice, I definitely felt that amazing environment, from in that arena, so much support, so much energy. Going onto the ice, I really had a nice day, excited to get out there.
«Of course, it didn’t go the way I wanted it to, but we can’t look at that now. All I have to do is just learn from my mistakes there and push to see how I can improve in the future.”
Malinin knew more than anyone what had just happened when his music cut out. As he entered the kiss-and-cry section while awaiting his score, NBC’s mics caught him saying «Beijing, I would not have skated like that.»
As commentator Johnny Weir explained, that seemed to be Malinin saying he could have avoided disaster had he been part of the Olympic team in 2022, when he was 17 years old but still finished second in the U.S. championships. With more Olympic experience, maybe he could have avoided disaster in Italy.
Malinin reinforced that idea when asked about his emotions following his performance, essentially saying the pressure got to him, while also hinting he could take a different approach at the 2030 Olympics in the French Alps:
“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. Not only from people, fans, media, it’s just so much. It really can get to you if you’re not ready to fully embrace it. 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.
Looking back at that, I know now I’ll be able to understand how that feels, so that way I can take a different approach leading up to the next Games, hopefully.””
Plenty of skating fans can’t wait to see how he changes that approach. He’ll get his first chance at a bounce back next month, when he goes for a three-peat at the world championships in Prague.
