Name: Ilia Malinin on Winter Olympics experience and feeling pressure during his free skate competition
Uploaded: 2026-02-26T06:24:33.000Z
Duration: 6 min 8 s
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You have built the brand as the quad God, and

Past simple

then that identity took on a life of its own.

The comparative

Is there more external or internal pressure that you feel?

I would say it's a little more internal because kind of just trying to live up to the name of quad God, it's already much.

And I think I can also say that it's also external because that's kind of the expectation that I put on myself that everyone would want me to, you know, live up to.

But in the end, I always trust my instincts and trust what I want to do, so I can sometimes block out all of that noise.

And so take me back to that moment in the free skate.

You came back, and you did another beautiful quad, though.

What was that internal negotiation of pushing forward, wanting to do that, but

also the reality of the moment setting in?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, going into the competition, I knew that I did not need a perfect skate to, you know, be satisfied with my result.

So, you know, when that mistake happened on the axel, I was like, okay, just kind of brush it off.

You know, I have to move on to the next step.

It's part of our jobs as skaters that we can't really focus too much on the mistakes we made or else that really gets in our head.

So we really just have to go on to the rest of the program.

And so to that point, I mean, you have pushed the sport forward, doing the quad axel, doing seven quads in one program, but

Would you ever consider paring back, or is it.

Is it really important for you to push the sport forward?

I think it's more important for me to just push the sport forward because I think a lot of people will remember what the reason was for the sport growth again.

A lot of the times, not a lot of people talk about the Olympic champions anymore, and

it's more about what image you leave for the sport.

So I think that's honestly a bigger goal that I want to push, is just revolutionizing the sport.

And, of course, with being the first person to have the quad axel, I think I would be much known as, you know, quad God, as we say, rather than, you know, winning gold medal.

I talked to Timothy Gable the other day, and he said, I never thought I'd see one.

And he's so impressed that you've been able to do that day in and day out.

So take me back, though, to the end of the free skate.

What did that moment teach you, though, that winning never could.

I mean, it's funny you say I was very emotional because I think it's more of a natural feeling that that's what happened and that's our natural reaction.

It's not necessarily I chose to be emotional.

It's just something that I needed to happen in the moment.

Because in the end, we're all human beings.

It's, you know, we're not trained out there to be robots.

And, you know, people from, you know, the outside world might think that we're so perfect, we're so, you know, this is what we do, and

it should be no problem, but in the end, it's really hard.

There's so much that goes into the sport, and the people don't really realize what's happening.

So for something like this to happen, I think it really gives people some hope that, you know, oh, I can relate to him because he had, you know, a bad day in his life.

So I think a lot of people go through good days and bad days.

So I think it was actually more of a way for people to relate and see that, you know, this is truly incredible, what we do.

And you're going to compete at the World Championships, hopefully we're going to see you compete over the next four years.

What are you going to do differently to prepare, if at all?

Honestly, I think there's not really different.

It's really just going about, you know, knowing that you have to get up and skate the next day.

It's part of our jobs and something that we like to do.

And of course, I can take time and really kind of understand what happened and what went wrong in the skate so that in the future doesn't happen.

But in the end, I can't really live on it for a long time because it's not worth it.

So it's always thinking of the next step into the future.

So set it and forget it kind of World Championships is the focus Gold or a Clean Skate?

Every competition I go to, my focus is a clean skate.

That's no matter what happens or no matter who's there, no matter if there's going to be a person that might be four times better than me.

And anything I do, it's always just to go there, have a successful skate and skate, just, you know, enjoy the skate.

And I really feel like a clean skate for me would make me happy no matter what the result would be.

So the Ladies are going to skate their long program tomorrow.

We saw you in the audience watching them yesterday.

What's your message to them as they take the ice?

You know, I'm just so proud for all of them who have made so much effort and determination to come here to the Olympics and really show themselves on the ice.

It's such an honor to be representing Team USA with them as well, and

all of us are really close and have each other's backs and support.

So I really want to wish them the best for tomorrow, and I'll definitely be watching.

And if we could rewind two weeks, what would be the one thing you would want to say to yourself ahead of these Games?

Honestly, just, you know, just be prepared for the worst, because you learn a lot more from failure than you do winning.

And that's something that a life lesson that I've always stuck with.

And also the concept of everything happens for a reason, and that's something that I'll also live with.

It's one of my mottos that I like to remind myself.

I wake up in the morning, the first thing.

So it's just really something that's really sentimental to me, and

I think everyone should try to embrace that and just really quickly.

The backflip doesn't get you points, but our viewers are obsessed.

It's honestly just a really big wow factor because it's so different compared to the skating jumps that we do.

A lot of the regular audience cannot really understand the difference between a triple and a quad jump because it happens so fast.

And it's just, you know, both of them can look pretty easy for the naked eye for someone who has no experience in skating.

But a backflip is something that everyone is very familiar with.

The concept, the idea, or even if they have done it before, whether it be on a trampoline, off the ice, or double or, you know, it's something that's just very relatable for everyone.

So realizing that people see that and they go, wow.

And the audience certainly does when you do it.