MILAN — The one hard truth about the Olympics is that no matter who you are, or how you got here, the pressure will find you. Sometimes it lands in your stomach and starts stomping around until you feel sick. Sometimes it runs circles around your head, and you feel dizzy but you don’t know why. The stomach is preferable.
Ilia Malinin found that out this weekend. Malinin is 21, and calling him the best male figure skater in the world doesn’t quite capture it. He is a phenomenon, the Quad God, Simone Biles on skates. Imagine his surprise, then, when he skated the short program in the team event Saturday, and—by his standards, anyway—made a mess of it.
