Team USA's Ilia Malinin was the heavy favorite coming into the men’s single skating competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics, and yet, he failed to pick up a medal.
Malinin unraveled in Milan despite making his routine look effortless countless times in his career. Not only did the two-time reigning world champion fail to pull off the quad axel, he stumbled as he tried to close out his performance with a quad salchow-triple axel combination.
"I blew it," Malinin said moments after placing eighth. "That's honestly the first thing that came to my mind."
So what went wrong for Malinin? While on NBC's "Today," the 21-year-old figure skater admit that he wasn't ready for all the pressure that comes with performing at the Olympics.
"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. "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."
© James Lang-Imagn Images.
Will we see Ilia Malinin at the 2030 Olympics?
During this week's appearance on "Today," Malinin hinted at his status for the 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps.
"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. "I can take a different approach leading up to the next Games, hopefully."
We'll have to wait a few years to see if Malinin gets redemption.