2026 Olympics: Men's Free Skate

[Greengemmonster]

I wonder if Shaidrov calls this a hollow Victory.
Is it a hollow victory due to ilia mistakes and yuma mistakes

Hell no. He competed, landed his quads and did not melt down when it mattered. He’s the Olympic Champion in every sense.

And I’m not even a fan

 

[skatesofgold]

With all the US media pressure and constant hyping up of athletes including athletes like Ilia hope NBC will finally learn their lesson after another repeat of Nathen Chen 2018 ( Though i personally think this was worse since Ilia Malinin was in the lead after the short.) NBC needs to let the athletes breathe stop shoving microphones in their face! It doesn't help after a devastating loss! Ilia handled the interview with courage and grace. I'm so proud of him. I hope Ilia goes to Worlds and skates lights out both programs! He needs a redo. I do think that skating in the team event did play a role and what happened. Who knows if it wore him out or not but he was caught between a rock and a hard place he might not have wanted to skate the long program but if the United States were to win he would have to skate the long program. Had he chosen not to skate and the US had gotten silver instead of gold because he didn't skate or they're saying we slipped all the way to bronze well he would have been vilified by the media. I feel like Ilia never got his feet under him he looked nervous every single performance and that's Olympic pressure.

Hyping athletes up builds excitement for the Olympics. I'm not going to blame NBC for Ilia's mistakes, seriously. Are people just supposed to watch not knowing who the ones to watch are? Figure skating doesn't sell itself anymore, if it ever did. Should athletes be interviewed right after they mess up? No, I don't think so, but I don't think the only pressure Ilia feels is from NBC. I know from experience that you feel pressure from yourself as well.

 

[Mista Ekko]

Hell no. He competed, landed his quads and did not melt down when it mattered. He’s the Olympic Champion in every sense.

And I’m not even a fan

I don't love his overall skating and I very much dislike his music choice and cut,

But being an olympic champion is about knowing how to meet a moment that comes once every 4 years and excelling then and there and he's the only one in that final group who really was able fit that bill.

Oh and his jumps are phenomenal

 

[Greengemmonster]

Sorry I’m just going to keep posting randomly to process my feelings.

I saw Shun skate and was stoked that he did so well and was leading. Then I left it for a bit because there was the dreaded feeling of: Oh they’re going to put most of the last group before him. I’ll go off and enjoy him leading while it lasts.

Then the last group happened and he is a Bronze Medallist! Could have been silver really. I’m just so shocked and pleased all whilst feeling extremely unsettled about the Ilia situation. But I soooooo badly wanted Shun to podium. So now Shun has podiumed and I’m thrilled for him but I feel weird at the same time.

 

[lileychristie]

Grassl to Italian TV : I had food poisoning yesterday.....after the skate....I had to run to the bathroom...

Geez, the local food must've disagreed with his stomach! Oh, wait......

 

[Greengemmonster]

I am very sad for Ilia because although he has never been my favorite, you cannot deny that he has been without question the dominant and most innovative and influential skater in the last quadrennial. And I say that as a huge Yuma fan. And that is probably the understatement of the century without question I think this will be the biggest upset of this Olympics I cannot imagine anything topping it.

Your comment resonates with me. I wanted him to fulfil destiny (yes I know it’s bizarre) so now I’m kinda feeling lost even though I adore Shun and Yuma and they both medaled!

 

[lariko]

Shaidorov certainly didn't discount his victory. In his interview, he underscored his respect to Ilia and all fellow competitors, but emphasized that he worked very hard to showcase both his own progress over the year and development of figure skating in Kazakhstan. He said he'd never seen as many Kazakh flags as he did during free skate and he was amazed at the support of the fans from Kazakhstan. He was as gracious and as happy as any winner and a very proud Kazakhstani champion.

 

[Libby96]

Ilia’s performance (and really the majority of this event) was such a gut punch. I don’t think I’ve been this sad about an Olympic outcome since MK in Nagano. The difference there, of course, was that she still performed well and still came away with a medal.

Any other long program Ilia had skated this past quad would probably have been good enough to earn him gold in this event.

Congratulations to the medalists. Based on the rules of the game, Mikhail is a deserving winner, but like a poster said above, I shudder a little to know that program goes down in history as an OGM program.

Weird that despite the craziness of the event the most likely picks for silver and bronze were realized. I’m especially pleased for Shun. I was also happy to see Torgashev skate well.

I’ve been a skating fan for almost 40 years (the Battle of the Brians in ‘88 marked the beginning of my fandom). This sport sure pulls on all the emotions. I hope Ilia regroups, and like MK, has many wonderful skating moments still to come in the future.

 

[Tulips]

I haven’t read through all these posts, but I feel Ilia tried to do too much. He didn’t need all those quads today. He practically could have skated around the ice after the first quad and done a few triples and still won gold.

He certainly didn’t need a quad axel to win. Why try it in this scenario?

 

[TallyT]

I wonder if Shaidrov calls this a hollow Victory.
Is it a hollow victory due to ilia mistakes and yuma mistakes

Gold is gold is gold. I doubt he even thinks it, and Kazakhstan will welcome him as a hero.

In the end, it's just being the best on that day. I don't think I have seen anyone claiming the win wasn't right and fair.

 

[Near]

I wonder if Shaidrov calls this a hollow Victory.
Is it a hollow victory due to ilia mistakes and yuma mistakes

Brah, he won the *Olympics*. Fair and square. The judges didn't prop him up, there was no cheating, he won it on the ice because he skated better than everybody else on the day. That's not hollow.

You can only beat the performances that you're up against. It's not relevant to the "wholesomeness" of his win that some of his top competitors made mistakes.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

I wonder if Shaidrov calls this a hollow Victory.
Is it a hollow victory due to ilia mistakes and yuma mistakes

The guy did 5 quads including a 3A+Eu+4S, something never done at the Olympics. It's absolutely not a hollow victory.

If Shaidorov bombed and Yuma won, perhaps Yuma would call it a hollow victory because he did very poorly. But Shaidorov laid it down.

Also, if Ilia didn't make mistakes and Yuma didn't make mistakes, then Shaidorov wouldn't have any victory.

Which is the silliest rhetoric to be honest.. of course if someone's the fave and they skate well they'll win... but if they do poorly and lose, and folks say "Oh well they would have won if they did as well as they could do or normally do." is just sour grapes.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

For those trivializing Shaidorov's victory or saying he's not a worthy OGM. I'd like to point out that the guy executed SEVEN quads. His TES was 115 points. Quad lutz (in the SP too). Quad flip. A perfect 3A+Eu+4S.

Yes, valid that his actual skating skills, choreo and program left a lot to be desired. But it's an athletic competition first and foremost -- and he did exactly what he needed to do, played to his strengths, skated in spite of pressure of a stacked final group (several of whom caved under the pressure), and he delivered.

 

[tempusfugit]

Yes

No

 

[tempusfugit]

I still don't like that NBC forced him into an interview with Andrea so immediately after a crushing loss

Having to be 'interviewed' by superannuated, senile, talentless Andrea Joyce is cruel and unusual punishment under ANY circumstances, much less these.

 

[4everchan]

For those trivializing Shaidorov's victory or saying he's not a worthy OGM. I'd like to point out that the guy executed SEVEN quads. His TES was 115 points. Quad lutz (in the SP too). Quad flip. A perfect 3A+Eu+4S.

Yes, valid that his actual skating skills, choreo and program left a lot to be desired. But it's an athletic competition first and foremost -- and he did exactly what he needed to do, played to his strengths, skated in spite of pressure of a stacked final group (several of whom caved under the pressure), and he delivered.

I think it's quite okay to be disappointed that the winner isn't a complete skater without being trivial. At the same time, it's the direction the sport has taken in the last 4-5 years. Misha is not on my list of skaters I enjoy watching. If I had my ways, he wouldn't be olympic champion but I used all my voodoo for Piper and Paul. But he earned the most points and wasn't gifted a victory here so kudos to him. Are there really people downplaying his victory ? It's a very different thing to downplay his victory and not being thrilled by it He's the undisputed winner. I don't like it but kudos to him.

 

[rain]

OK, I haven't had time to watch it yet (except for Malinin's disaster — ouch), but damn! That was a huge surprise!

I thought Gogolev's 10th place in the short was a phenomenal result for him, and never, never expected — knock me over with a feather — he would wind up 5th, second in the free and a point off the podium! So proud of him.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

I haven’t read through all these posts, but I feel Ilia tried to do too much. He didn’t need all those quads today. He practically could have skated around the ice after the first quad and done a few triples and still won gold.

He certainly didn’t need a quad axel to win. Why try it in this scenario?

4A was a bad idea, but it’s hard to take out content on the fly. You don’t know what to take out because all the other jumps are easy for you in normal circumstances. Once things started going bad, he did need the quads and couldn’t find them. He’ll have to plan better next time because he actually accrued a good amount of points on the quads he did. He just lost a ton on pops and falls where other guys got more points doing triples. That popped 4Acould have been a 3A giving him 10+ more points.

 

[Greengemmonster]

I had one mad moment where I was like: Shun just do the damn quad flip. It’s your only chance to podium boy!!!

And I’m so glad he didn’t because you never know how life plays out and if he had fallen it would have been bye bye bronze!

By the way did I mention I’M SO THRILLED HE MEDALLED!!!!!

 

[ChiGal]

Sorry posters, this is a duplicate post from the replay lounge! Delete if needed.

Here is my take on Ilia's skating issues and hopefully does not come across as a conspiracy theory!
This started in the team events, when he skated well enough but not up to the over-hyped Ilia standard. Something was up.... Then Rafael Arutunian was called and received an "emergency clearance" to come to Milan and help coach Ilia, in addition to the fact that Ilia was not practicing at the Olympic practice venue, but at another location in Italy (I also remember reading that the ladies were practicing off-site, so this may be insignificant). I think that maybe Ilia "lost" his jump/quad abilities, similar to the Simone Biles "twisties" issue that caused her to drop out of the 2020 Olympics. Hence, Raf showing up and the off-site practices kept this development under wraps. When Ilia came off the ice in the short program, i could hear Raf saying something like "Yes?? The technique worked." I really think Ilia just temporarily "lost" his ability to do jumps beyond a double, much less being able to jump quads. His popping jumps and falling on the ice were so VERY UNCHARACTERISTIC of him, that something else other than Olympic nerves was going on. Anyways, just my layman's opinion of what may have happened.