Ilia Malinin Had Saddest Reaction After Failing to Medal in Men’s Singles Competition

In one of the most shocking results of the Winter Olympics thus far, American Ilia Malinin failed to medal in the men’s singles figure skating final on Friday.

The “Quad God” was the wide favorite to win individual gold in the men’s competition, but failed to do so after falling twice in his free skate on Friday. Malinin entered the competition with a 5.09 point lead over the next closest competitor, but after falling twice and scoring just a 156.33 in the free skate, he placed eighth. He also did not perform his signature move, the quad axel, during his program.

“Honestly, I'm just speechless. So in shock, I really didn't know what to expect,” Malinin said, via The Athletic. “It's just I've been training my whole season to get to this point and skate as best as I can but it didn't happen.”

“I’m heartbroken,” he said to Devin Heroux. “I don’t think I was prepared for the atmosphere of the Olympics.”

Ilia Malinin falls out of the podium in the men's singles final for figure skating.

Malinin finishes in 8th place. pic.twitter.com/c4ZvSrkmIB
— The Sporting News (@sportingnews) February 13, 2026

Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov instead takes home the gold medal while Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama wins silver and Japan’s Shun Sato claims the bronze. This marks the second ever goal medal for Kazakhstan at the Winter Olympics.

Malinin did impressively maintain his composure in the wake of an agonizing defeat.

He told reporters, “The pressure of the Olympics, it’s really something different. I think that not a lot of people understand that, they’ll only understand that from the inside. Going into this competition, especially today, I felt really confident, really good. The earlier practice today went really well, I felt like I was ready. All I needed to do was come out here and trust everything that happened but it really just went by so fast I didn’t have time to process what really went down.”

U.S. figure skater Ilia Malinin spoke with @nbcwashington following his 8th-place finish in the Winter Olympics. pic.twitter.com/m2GfwS0F5D
— Greg Rosenstein (@grosenstein) February 13, 2026

While Malinin fell short of the individual gold and an individual medal at his first Olympic Games, he won’t be going home empty handed. Earlier at the Milan Cortina Games, the two-time World Champion helped the U.S. win the gold in the team event.