Story byBen BlanchetTue, February 17, 2026 at 5:56 PM UTC·3 min readU. S. figure skater Ilia Malinin has admitted that he wasn’t quite ready for the bright lights on the Olympic ice at this year’s Milan Cortina Games. The 21-year-old “Quad God,” who dazzled crowds with a near-perfect short program before a disastrous performance in the men’s free skate on Friday, told NBC’s “Today” show on Tuesday that the pressure from fans and the media weighed “a lot” on him ahead of the event. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSports: 'Oh My Goodness!': Wild Freestyle Skiing Finish Stuns Fans At Winter Olympics“It really can get to you if you’re not ready to fully embrace it,” Malinin said. He went on, “So I think that might be one of the mistakes I made going into that free skate was I was not ready to handle that to a full extent.”Malinin said he felt “really confident” and ready to take on the “amazing environment” of the Olympic ice prior to the performance.“Of course it didn’t go the way I wanted to, but we can’t look at that now, and all I have to do is just learn from my mistakes there and push to see how I can improve in the future,” he said. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMalinin added that he hopes to develop a “different approach” to the competition ahead of the 2030 French Alps Games. Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive.