Ilia Malinin on 8th Place, Falls in Figure Skating

Ilia Malinin is still processing his loss at the 2026 Olympics.

During the men’s single skating competition at the Milano Cortina Winter Games Feb. 13, the figure skater—who was expected to take home the gold medal—came in eighth place after falling multiple times and botching several of his attempted jumps.

“I blew it,” Ilia admitted to NBC following the competition. “That’s honestly the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘There’s no way that just happened.’”

The 21-year-old—known as the “Quad God” for being the first and only skater to successfully land a fully rotated quadruple axel in an international competition—added that he was not expecting the outcome.

“I felt like going into this competition I was so ready,” he said. “I just felt ready getting on that ice. But I think maybe that might have been the reason—that maybe I was too confident that I was gonna go well.”