"As he stood on the center of the ice on Friday following his free skate, he couldn't hide his angst and confusion, his frustration -- and sheer heartbreak. The gold medal, which just moments before had felt like a near-certainty, was now completely out of reach. Everything he had worked for over the past four years, and a lifetime really, was over in four disastrous minutes. Malinin, the two-time reigning world champion with an unbeaten streak dating back to 2023,"
""I thought that all I needed to do was go out there and trust the process that I've always been doing with every competition," Malinin, 21, said. "But of course it's not like any other competition. It's the Olympics. It was really just something that overwhelmed me, and I just felt like I had no control." While it might be little consolation to Malinin in this moment, he is far from the only high-profile"
Ilia Malinin, 21, entered the Olympics as a two-time reigning world champion with an unbeaten streak dating back to 2023. A highly anticipated free skate unfolded disastrously, leaving him eighth and off the podium. He reported feeling overwhelmed and out of control despite trusting his usual preparation. The result erased years of work and left immediate questions about what went wrong. Comparable instances of elite athletes succumbing to Olympic pressure include Simone Biles' twisties in 2021, Mikaela Shiffrin's struggles without medals at recent Games, and Nathan Chen's disappointing 2018 Olympic debut. Simone Biles and Nathan Chen attended the event.
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