Emotional ‘Quad God’ US skating star Ilia Malinin reveals cause of his nightmare Winter Olympic collapse

American figure skater Ilia Malinin admitted that he was overwhelmed by a series of thoughts before his shocking defeat in the men’s free skating final at the Milan Winter Olympics on Friday.

After putting together a great short program that would take him into the lead in the men’s single free skate event, he would need to put in a routine performance in the free skate to earn himself a medal.

Known as the ‘Quad God’ for his ability to perform quad spins in the air at speeds unprecedented in the sport, the Virginia native was expected to perform multiple quad moves in his performance.

However, Malinin was only able to land one pair. He had to navigate a quad axel and a quad loop (only hitting a single axel and a double loop) before falling twice.

An emotional Malinin was seen slipping on the ice and angrily muttering to himself before finishing eighth in the competition.

Speaking to reporters after the sad defeat, Malinin explained what was going through his mind before taking to the ice.

Malinin had to withdraw from two of her quadruple jump attempts and dropped twice in her performance

‘Quad God’ Malinin, who was expected to win the gold medal, finished eighth

‘So many thoughts and memories came to mind just before I got into my starting pose that I think it overwhelmed me a bit. I’ve been through a lot in my life, a lot of bad experiences and good experiences,” Malinin said during a reporter’s flurry with NBC Washington after the competition.

‘So I especially feel the pressure of being an Olympic gold medal hopeful. “This was something I could no longer control.”

The 21-year-old emphasized the amount of stress the Olympics can bring.

“The pressure of the Olympics is something really different and I think a lot of people don’t understand that,” Malinin added.

‘They’re just from the inside and they understand that going into this competition, especially today, I feel really confident, really good. But it really went by so fast I didn’t have time to process it.’

Despite the heartbreak in his individual competition, Malinin will not leave Milan empty-handed. He brings back the gold medal he won with the USA in the team competition, which the USA captured earlier in the week.

‘I definitely think it’s a positive for me. “And honestly, that might be giving me the thoughts that I need to figure out why this is happening in the individual race,” he said of winning the medal with the rest of Team USA.

‘I think by participating in this competition I made sure that I could prepare myself for at least four programs or four performances. So quite frankly, I didn’t have time to fully understand what was going on.’

Malinin admitted to journalists: ‘The pressure of the Olympics is really something different’

Malinin lost the gold medal to Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov (left)

In December, Malinin set a new world record with a free skate score of 238.24. However, that form was not seen on the ice in Italy on Friday night.

Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov won the gold medal in the free skate with 198.94 points and a total of 291.58 points.

This was Kazakhstan’s first gold medal at the Winter Olympics since the games in Lillehammer in 1994.

Japanese Yuma Kagiyama, who was expected to be Malinin’s biggest rival, settled for silver, while his compatriot Shun Sato won the bronze medal.