American figure skating sensation Ilia Malinin arrived in Italy as the clear favorite for Olympic gold and the biggest sure thing the sport had seen in decades.
But with that expectation came pressure and that was enough to sink the skater who gave himself the nickname "Quad God" as a teenager.
According to ESPN, on Friday night, as Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, reigning men's figure skating champion Nathan Chen and millions at home watched in disbelief, Malinin bailed out of his famed quad axel in the air for his second jump, and then unraveled.
For someone who had made it look so easy, so effortless, over the past three years, the weight of it all suddenly got to him. The timing couldn't have been worse, as the skater seemingly destined for gold instead finished in a stunning eighth place, with Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan emerging victorious.
"I blew it," Malinin said moments after leaving the ice. "That's honestly the first thing that came to my mind."
With a five-point lead separating him from the rest of the field after Tuesday's short program, the 21-year-old was the last skater to take the ice. After several top skaters visibly dealt with nerves and falls of their own, all Malinin needed to do was what he had done countless times.
But as he went to strike his opening pose, Malinin said he was flooded with overwhelming nerves that he simply couldn't shake.
"I just felt like all the ... traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding my head, and there were just so many negative thoughts that just flooded into there," Malinin said. "And I just did not handle it."
Malinin, the two-time reigning world champion who had an unbeaten streak dating to 2023, landed his high-scoring opening quad flip jump but then struggled with the axel jump.
There was a successful quad lutz after, but then he doubled what was a planned quad loop. Malinin soon fell on a quad lutz, preventing him from doing the second jump (a triple toe loop) of the combination.
