{"id":178278,"date":"2026-02-14T20:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T20:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178278\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T20:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T20:22:09","slug":"ilia-malinins-collapse-olympics-are-a-different-kind-of-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178278\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilia Malinin’s collapse: Olympics are a different kind of pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MILAN\u00a0\u2014\u00a0When she skated, Tara Lipinski<\/a> was always nervous. But it was different before the free skate of the 1998 Olympics<\/a>. The teenager cried that morning. She called her parents after the six-minute warmup and said she couldn\u2019t do it. Her legs were physically shaking in her beginning pose. She didn\u2019t know what to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go to the Olympics<\/a>, there\u2019s no training for that,\u201d said Lipinski, now an analyst for NBC. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to feel like \u2018til you\u2019re actually feeling it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The awe-inspiring dream that often starts as a child can quickly turn into a nightmare for athletes who get blinded by the bright Olympic spotlight. While Lipinski realized her dream, becoming Olympic champion in Nagano, she knows the suffocating feeling of competing under the Olympic rings.<\/p>\n

She knows the stress that devoured Ilia Malinin<\/a> on Friday in Milan.<\/p>\n

Malinin\u2019s meltdown from favorite to eighth place underscored the unpredictability of the Olympic stage. The 21-year-old dubbed \u201cthe Quad God<\/a>\u201d was supposed to unleash the first quadruple axel in Olympic history. The four-and-a-half twisting jump he successfully executed when he was 17 has been the talk of the Olympic cycle. <\/p>\n

Battling nerves and the conditioning needed for a long Olympic competition, he didn\u2019t use it during the team competition or his individual short program. The free skate would be the last opportunity. It felt like the perfect coronation for the soon-to-be Olympic champion.<\/p>\n

Then he bailed midair.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that, for me, I would be like, \u2018Oh, man, I just missed what everyone was waiting for,\u2019\u201d Lipinski said. \u201cYou go through that minute of being rattled and you have to come back to [the program]. … The next jump [he] wasn\u2019t able to completely reset and shake it off. And then once that next mistake happened \u2014 and for Ilia, who doesn\u2019t make mistakes \u2014 I think that was probably very difficult for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The standing-room-only crowd gasped when Malinin gave up on the quad axel. Fans grew more uneasy when he fell two jumps later. They tried to urge him on as the mistakes piled up. Instead of joyful encouragement, the clapping felt like desperation in the arena.<\/p>\n

\"Ilia <\/p>\n

Ilia Malinin falls during his free skate at the Milan-Cortina Games on Friday.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Eight years ago, when Nathan Chen bent under the Olympic pressure in Pyeongchang, the crowd\u2019s gasps each time he stumbled through his short program only made one of the hardest moments of his career even more difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat just hurts you to your gut,\u201d Chen said in a video for Yahoo Sports<\/a>. \u201cYou get up and mentally you have to refresh … but also the energy just changes in the arena. You can tell there\u2019s tension now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chen, then 18 years old in his Olympic debut, bounced back in a fearless free skate that moved him into fifth overall. He became almost unbeatable for the next Olympic cycle. At the Beijing Games<\/a>, he set the world record for the short program, exorcised the demons from 2018 and became the United States\u2019 first Olympic gold medalist in men\u2019s singles in 12 years.<\/p>\n

Malinin was a contender to be at those Games four years ago. He finished second in the 2022 U.S. championships, but was left off the Olympic team in a controversial decision. Then just 17, he was only in his first full season of senior competition.<\/p>\n

But Malinin was already poised to be the future of the sport. Simply going to the Games as an understudy to Chen\u2019s leading role would have been valuable experience.<\/p>\n

Instead, U.S. Figure Skating selected third-place finisher Vincent Zhou and fourth-place Jason Brown.<\/p>\n

Sitting with his coaches while waiting for his score Friday, a frustrated Malinin said if he had been sent to Beijing, he \u201cwouldn\u2019t have skated like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy,\u201d he said as cameras zoomed into his face.<\/p>\n

He shrugged. He reset.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if I went to \u201922 then I would have had more experience and know how to handle this Olympic environment,\u201d a composed Malinin said in the mixed zone interview area. \u201cBut also, I don\u2019t know what the next stages of my life would look like if I went there. So now all I can do is just regroup from this and really just take in the information that happened and just figure out how to manage in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malinin has said he wants to skate for three Olympic cycles. The first attempt ended in shattering disappointment. That could only make the comeback sweeter.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will dominate the sport for years to come,\u201d Lipinski said. \u201cThis was a huge, obviously, heartbreak for him, but we will see him rise again.\u201d<\/p>\n