Ilia Malinin misses Olympic podium after disastrous free skate

By the time he hit his final pose, shock and horror etched clear across his face, Malinin had dropped a whopping 72 points on jumping errors.

The heavy weight of expectation

Malinin’s “Quad God” moniker is one that he gave himself. He’s always been someone who sidles right up to the edge of arrogant, and until this Olympic long program, his work had justified it. The media, charmed by his skill, was only too happy to push the “Quad God” narrative; his fans, riding off his competitive highs, turned his narrative into legend. All this confidence came from a good place, but its effect was to render Malinin infallible.

He isn’t. He never was. And Malinin’s collapse shows just how heavy the weight of perceived infallibility becomes on a stage as big as the Olympic Games. His long program struggle wasn’t physical; replays of his botched jumps showed no obvious signs of setup or takeoff errors. His struggle was mental, pure and simple, and it was exacerbated by the narrative he, his fans and the media created for him.

Malinin is just 21, and these are his first Olympic Games. This was a failure of expectations, not skill, and it raises important questions about how we should talk about generational talents in the future. Malinin’s struggle mirrors those of slalom skier Mikaela Shiffrin in 2022 and of gymnast Simone Biles in 2021. It doesn’t matter how talented an individual may be: Put them on a high enough pedestal and their legs will start shaking when they look down.

What’s next

Malinin’s Olympics have come to a close, but Team USA will continue on its hunt for an individual skating gold medal. The U.S. women — Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito — will begin their competition on Tuesday, Feb. 17.