U.S. Figure Skater Ilia Malinin's Admission About Gold Medal Win at Winter Olympics

Malinin was back in action on Tuesday. This time around, the Vienna, Virginia native competed in the men’s individual short program. In his first individual event at the Winter Games, the “Quad God” lived up to all the hype.

Malinin scored a 108.16 by busting out his trademark quadruple jumps and backflip. He now sits atop the table with a lead of 5.09 points over second-placed Yuma Kagiyama of Japan. Malinin is now in pole position to secure his first individual Olympic gold medal in the free skate competition.

Malinin spoke to reporters after his program. The U.S. star took the opportunity to make an honest admission about his outing at the team event on Sunday.

"Going into this individual event, I definitely took a different approach," Malinin said. "Being in the team event, I think I had too much — I'll call it Olympic excitement. So I just felt like there's so much pressure and I was so hyped up, so excited to be out there and it really just came back and bit me.

“Coming to this short program and individual event, I wanted to take things more slowly, a little more calmly and, honestly, just push the autopilot button and see what happens."

Malinin’s performance at the team event was impressive. However, by his own admission, his overexcitement in his first Olympic event “came back and bit me.”

Malinin turned in an even more awe-inspiring performance in the short program. He will need to bring it again on Friday as he looks to add to his gold medal tally. The men’s free skate will start at 3 p.m. ET.