In the end, Ilia Malinin chose to rely on the medium he knows best to express his deepest thoughts. And despite his struggles at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics, his skate at the Feb. 21 exhibition gala helped him to address those challenges and speak directly with the audience who had supported him along the way.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Malinin had been the heavy favorite to win gold at his first Olympics Games. During the men’s figure skating free program, he set out to make Olympic history by planning to land seven quadruple jumps in a single program—a technical feat that would have underscored his dominance in the skating world and landed him on top of the podium. He popped the first one he intended, the quad axel, which only he has landed in competition, but wasn’t able to muster enough of his remaining skills to stay ahead of his competitors. The self-styled “Quad God,” thought to be one of the sure things in the always unpredictable Olympics, finished eighth overall.
How Malinin skated that program, it turns out, was a message to the world—one that grappled with the weight of expectations that Malinin was dealing with. He hadn’t spoken publicly about the pressure he has been feeling, he says, throughout this Olympic season. Touted as the next Olympic champion, Malinin experienced extraordinary demands on his time and mental energy that eroded his confidence and led to his first loss in nearly two years.
More than a week later, skating in the Olympic exhibition gala, Malinin again chose to speak on the ice, with a program he has been working on for a few months with a friend who cut the music, called Fear, from one of his favorite artists, NF. The program is a sober representation of the loss of control Malinin says he’s been feeling as the hype and expectation around his Olympic debut built. He teased the routine following his free program, posting on his account a clip that depicts an overwhelming cascade of pinging social media alerts. He opened the program with the sounds of that flood of messages, and mimed scrolling through them before putting his hands to his head and flipping the hood of his grey sweatshirt, stamped with the word ‘Fear,’ over his head.
“I really just wanted to share an extension of my thoughts and something that I’ve been feeling for this whole Olympic season,” he says. “There’s been so much pressure, so much doubt, and everything around me, the noise, the media, the people, the environment—it’s been so overwhelming.”
The lyrics are especially poignant for Malinin: “Like a puppet, with strings, I just don’t have the choice. What’s the truth? What’s a lie? … “On the verge, on the edge, Is this what you wanted? Petrified, scared to death, Is this what you wanted?…Breakin’ down, spiralin’, Is this what you wanted? What you wanted? Is this what you wanted?”
The program was an emotional appeal to the public to see him as “a human being,” he said. “We also have real thoughts, real feelings, even though it looks like we’re completely like robots and [have] superhuman abilities. But in the end, deep inside, we’re still similar [to] all of you.”
Malinin, of course, isn’t the first to address the nearly impossible expectations that people put on celebrities or elite athletes, in particular Olympians. Gymnast Simone Biles has used similar words in describing the dangers of forgetting that athletes are people too—individuals who experience the same pressure, anxieties, and pain from hurtful remarks and uninformed criticism as anyone else.
But perhaps more than any previous Olympics, these Games, and this U.S. figure skating team in particular, have taken up the mantle of mental health, making it a priority, rather than an afterthought. The U.S. women’s squad of Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn, and Isabeau Levito has been making headlines for its uniquely close relationship, and questioning why they can’t successfully balance friendship and competition. When asked after making the Olympic team about the novelty of the strong bond between them, Liu seemed baffled, apparently not understanding why it was considered so unusual for them to be so close and supportive of one another.
But in skating—and among women in particular, such camaraderie hasn’t been the norm. Young girls are taught from early in their careers to hide their feelings, smile no matter what they’re experiencing inside, and never allow their rivals to see their weaknesses. The rigidity of that system is one of the reasons Liu quit the sport at 16, before deciding to return, on her own terms, two years later.
When Glenn missed a jump combination in the short program that put her in 13th place going into the final, it was Liu who was among the first to give her a hug and comfort her. She helped Glenn put the mistake behind her and skate a strong free program to pull up to fifth. And that supportive instinct extends beyond just her teammates. When Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto missed a jump in the free program and realized she would miss earning gold, her emotions overtook her and couldn’t stop the tears. Glenn stepped in to hug her and shield her from prying cameras that had zoomed in on the distraught Sakamoto.
To Glenn, Liu, and Levito, such expressions take precedence over medals or standings. “I’m thankful for the amount of success that we’ve had with that, because it’s not made us less competitive, it’s not led to any falters on the ice,” Glenn said. “That’s one of the most beautiful things about sport, it’s not just what we do out there when we perform, but the journey and the people who surround us during it. I think that is something that will improve so many athletes’ lives, and that’s what I’ve wanted to do.”
One of them will be Malinin, who will leave Milan “learning to get back up and keep going,” he says. “It’s still just figure skating. And sometimes the medals don’t mean as much as who you are as a person and what you truly bring to the world around you.”
