What happened to Ilia Malinin?

I have always loved figure skating because it combines three of my favorite things: athleticism, music, and dance. So, of course, I've been keeping an eye on Ilia Malinin (aka, "The Quad God") recently. He has revolutionized the sport and taken it to a whole new level in a way that only a handful of athletes have ever done. 

When Malinin stepped onto Olympic ice on Friday in Milan, Italy, he led the field by five points. Beyond that, skaters from Japan and France - who were in second and third place - had skated poorly. Based on the technical merits of Ilia's program, it wouldn't have mattered if they had skated perfectly. A clean skate by the American would have given him the gold medal with lots of room to spare.

If you've been paying attention to the Olympics, you know that's not what happened. Malinin's program was a disaster - so much so that he wound up in 8th place overall. Like the rest of the world, I was in shock. 

Almost immediately, the recovering therapist in me began to try to construct what happened because it was obvious that the failure was a result of Ilia's mental game. In an interview immediately after his skate, he mentioned that perhaps he was overconfident and owned that he blew it. 

That's when I thought about his performance two months ago at the ISU Grand Prix Final in Japan. Ilia hadn't skated well in the short program and found himself in third place - a position he hadn't been in for quite some time. Under those circumstances, here's how he responded in the free skate. 

At the end of that program, Ilia almost looked like he was angry. He was fighting back and skating as if to prove something to himself and the audience. The result was a perfect skate that included a quadruple axel (something no other human has ever done in competition) and seven quad jumps (another feat no other human has ever accomplished). The announcers were absolutely speechless. Ilia's score for that skate was 238, a world record and 82 points higher than he earned Friday at the Olympics.

More than the pressure of the Olympics (which must have been epic for this young man), I'd suggest that the difference between his performance at the Grand Prix Final and the Olympics captures the biggest takeaway when we wonder WTH happened to Ilia. At the former, he had to go out and fight for it. When it came time for the Olympics, the gold medal was practically handed to him on a platter. 

This is part of Ilia's personality that he he's talked about before. For example, after placing second in the U.S. Nationals competition, he wasn't invited to be part of the 2022 U.S. Olympic team. He's said that it was his anger at that decision that pushed him to stretch and expand what is possible in the sport. Fighting back is what made him the phenomenon he became. 

On the one hand, this is an obstacle Ilia will have to figure out how to overcome. There's no going back on his talent and skills as the best figure skater in the world today. On the other hand, it will be fascinating to watch how this disastrous performance at the Olympics affects his skating going forward. I have a hunch that the next time he steps on the ice he will do so with a vengeance that could rock the figure skating world. It's likely to look something like this: