It was certainly a poor design if one mark had no upper limit and the other one was capped. "Updating" it won't solve that problem, as long as TES can exceed maximum PCS. To make the two marks truly equal, there would have to be a limit on tech, to make it equal to the limit on PCS. We had that in the 6.0 system and the decision was made to move away from that.
2026 Olympics: Men's Free Skate
- Thread starter dorispulaski
- Start date
- Status
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2009
In that specific case if anything I remember them trying to keep Ilia's scores decent,
probably to avoid his presence there throwing a wrench in what most assumed was a predetermined top 3
who were getting that National treatment indeed, Last thing they wanted was another national selection mess
(which they got anyway). Did you watch the event?
Last edited:
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2018
That's what usually brings them back down to earth...
I can perfectly well see why he thought he couldn't lose, of course. Pretty much everyone did.
I think some people need a reality check. Ilia wasn't able to go to the 2022 olympics because there was more depth in the US men's field at the time and they were ahead of him in priority based on their body of work that was relevant to the pre-determined selection criteria.You have to earn your place on an olympic team.
It's ridiculous that people are trying to blame one competition result on a USFS decision from 4 years ago and its extremely disrespectful to Jason Brown who is an amazing skater in his own right who earned his place on the 2022 team with his body of work and has helped support US mens skating for many years. If there is one thing that drastically stood out in yesterday's competition it was that there was a lack of enjoyable programs and only a few skaters were clean. Jason's quality and performance was in a league of its own at the time. The absence of a skater like Jason Brown was felt in yesterday's messy competition. JASON FINISHED IN 6TH PLACE AT THE 2022 OLYMPICS. The skater with no quads was only 2 points away from beating the great Yuzuru Hanyu and 11 points away from placing on the podium. Ilia went to worlds that same season (about 1 month after the olympics) and finished in 9th, top skaters like Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu didn't even go to that world championships. US skaters Vincent Zhou and Camden Pulkinen finished above him (3rd and 5th).
At the 2026 Milan olympics Ilia finished in 8th place, 30 points away from bronze in a relatively poorly skated event.
Ilia skated two segments of the team event in Milan which provided olympic experience in advance of the individual event. One would think that the entire team depending on your placement to get a gold medal was more pressure and better experience than competing as a teenager at the 2022 olympics.
This is not to blame Ilia for anything, I do feel sad for him, but it is immature for people to try to shift the blame to not going to the 2022 olympics. I think the media attention was too much (US figure skaters don't get this level of attention for any other type of competition) and US media always does this thing to favorites where they act like the person is an OGM before they have even competed. The media also wouldn't stop talking about the quad axel and I think Ilia felt a lot of pressure to show it here (when he shouldn't have risked it) and when it didn't work out his panic and disappointment at not showing the quad axel got the best of him. He also has a habit of changing up program content (or thinking about changing program content), just because that works sometimes doesn't mean it isn't risky as we saw yesterday.
It's ridiculous that people are trying to blame one competition result on a USFS decision from 4 years ago and its extremely disrespectful to Jason Brown who is an amazing skater in his own right who earned his place on the 2022 team with his body of work and has helped support US mens skating for many years. If there is one thing that drastically stood out in yesterday's competition it was that there was a lack of enjoyable programs and only a few skaters were clean. Jason's quality and performance was in a league of its own at the time. The absence of a skater like Jason Brown was felt in yesterday's messy competition. JASON FINISHED IN 6TH PLACE AT THE 2022 OLYMPICS. The skater with no quads was only 2 points away from beating the great Yuzuru Hanyu and 11 points away from placing on the podium. Ilia went to worlds that same season (about 1 month after the olympics) and finished in 9th, top skaters like Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu didn't even go to that world championships. US skaters Vincent Zhou and Camden Pulkinen finished above him (3rd and 5th).
At the 2026 Milan olympics Ilia finished in 8th place, 30 points away from bronze in a relatively poorly skated event.
Ilia skated two segments of the team event in Milan which provided olympic experience in advance of the individual event. One would think that the entire team depending on your placement to get a gold medal was more pressure and better experience than competing as a teenager at the 2022 olympics.
This is not to blame Ilia for anything, I do feel sad for him, but it is immature for people to try to shift the blame to not going to the 2022 olympics. I think the media attention was too much (US figure skaters don't get this level of attention for any other type of competition) and US media always does this thing to favorites where they act like the person is an OGM before they have even competed. The media also wouldn't stop talking about the quad axel and I think Ilia felt a lot of pressure to show it here (when he shouldn't have risked it) and when it didn't work out his panic and disappointment at not showing the quad axel got the best of him. He also has a habit of changing up program content (or thinking about changing program content), just because that works sometimes doesn't mean it isn't risky as we saw yesterday.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2006
I think you just hit the nail on the head then on how poorly Ilia would have been scored internationally if you are saying you recall the Nationals judges trying to keep his scores “decent” in 2022. I would not say that most assumed the team was predetermined. Did you watch the actual skating quality of Ilia comparatively to Jason? Figure skating is not only about jumps! I sure did watch every skater and I support the USFSA’s decision on the makeup of the Olympic team based on their selection criteria.
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2004
I hadnt considered that possibility but now that you mention it, it is possible that person X, Y or Z or a combo there of did put this idea into his young impressionable head. Maybe years ago. Thank you. without getting political, certain entities in my country try to do this every day to young people for political purposes. I was fortunate to have a prof at the University of Illinois, Urbana, who installed a garbage detector in my brain , so that I question everything the media and anyone else tries to feed me. It IS possible someone feed him this and kept repeating it along with others helping....and that is sad. And sadder if he comes to the realization that they were wrong in doing that. My father tried to teach me to be a racist and antisemetic...but it didnt work....
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2004
I feel your pain. The only time I really cry hard is when we loose a dog. We have a burial mound with 6 volcanic stone cairns on it.
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2014
Kurt Browning's comments about Ilia.
youtu.be
IMO very thoughtful, kind, and heartfelt. But there's one turn of phrase that I found fascinating: Kurt described Ilia as "viciously consistent" (around 4:06 in the clip). He hesitated for a long moment before using that word and I wondered why he chose it. It may have been just the heat of the moment but it just seemed to jump out of the rest of his statements.
Please understand that this is NOT a criticism of Kurt, only an expression of my own surprise. He said several times that he was shocked at what happened and clearly feels bad for Ilia. He talked about his own Olympic disappointments and tried hard to describe what goes through a skater's head in moments like that.
Overall, a worthwhile and nuanced interview. Aside from his wonderful skating, Kurt has to be one of the nicest guys in the sport. He does Canada proud!
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
youtu.be
IMO very thoughtful, kind, and heartfelt. But there's one turn of phrase that I found fascinating: Kurt described Ilia as "viciously consistent" (around 4:06 in the clip). He hesitated for a long moment before using that word and I wondered why he chose it. It may have been just the heat of the moment but it just seemed to jump out of the rest of his statements.
Please understand that this is NOT a criticism of Kurt, only an expression of my own surprise. He said several times that he was shocked at what happened and clearly feels bad for Ilia. He talked about his own Olympic disappointments and tried hard to describe what goes through a skater's head in moments like that.
Overall, a worthwhile and nuanced interview. Aside from his wonderful skating, Kurt has to be one of the nicest guys in the sport. He does Canada proud!
- Joined
- May 31, 2010
I was very impressed by Mikhail's emotional restraint keeping in mind the tragic failure of the opponent AND Ilia's smile & hug for Mikhail in the mental breakdown situation.
Given each epic, Mikhail's grand expression of joy in Ilia's presence and Ilia's cold/numb/whatever acts are forgiven or accepted all! But they were considerate of each other.
I was surprised and warmed. Although they are not kids
anyway they are very young. Born in 2004! Both very classy.
(sorry for my poor English)
Given each epic, Mikhail's grand expression of joy in Ilia's presence and Ilia's cold/numb/whatever acts are forgiven or accepted all! But they were considerate of each other.
I was surprised and warmed. Although they are not kids
anyway they are very young. Born in 2004! Both very classy.(sorry for my poor English)
Last edited:
Gogolev indeed had much more drive, mainly thanks to Rachmaninov music. Ironically, it's exactly the reason why I failed to take him seriously. Because I always thought about Mao Asada, especially on steps. And the comparison was so much not in favour of Gogolev that it made me giggle.
It's an upper quads era now. The guy who doesn't have any single one shouldn't be on the Olympic podium. Gumennik is the only one who had all three upper quads, no one else did, and he performed 5 quads in total, only him and Shaidarov. I stand that the right result is 1. Shaidarov, 2. Sato 3. Gumennik.
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2020
Anger, love, fear, happiness, desire, shame .... - these are feelings. "I did bad because... " or "It would not have happened if only..." are not feelings. These are thoughts, opinions, beliefs, attributions. It is not what people feel. It is what they think.
Losing when people expected you to win - this is an experience. "I lost because... " or "It would not have happened if only..." are not experiences. These are thoughts, opinions, beliefs. They may be rooted in personal experience but are not an experience themselves.
"It's my feeling that being physically and emotionally abused by my parents had a drastic negative impact on my life" - no, it is not a feeling. It is a thought, an opinion, a belief, a causal attribution. It is most probably right, but it is not what you feel, it is what you think, even if everyday language allows for such a figure of speech stressing how deeply you believe in it. And this thought is making you feel - exactly what? Anger? Pain? Shame? Hate? Whatever it is, this is what you're feeling, not the former one.
Moving away from the example of abuse.
I'm feeling ashamed, so I am looking for external factors that take away responsibility from me and put it somewhere else - this is a psychological defence, a coping mechanism in which a causal attribution is allowing us to feel a little better. Pretty common. As a causal attribution, it may be right or wrong.
There's no negating the devastating impact of abuse on the life of the victim. Of course, abuse often has such an devastating impact, never goes without leaving a scar.
OTOH, not being sent to Olympic Games impacting your results at your first OG 4 years later? Debatable, to say the least.
Last edited:
Shaidarov is fast at badmouthing about Russian Men again. Said that their comeback to competitions wouldn't change anything in Men. What a hypocrite. He added the 5th quad in LP, originally planned 4, after finding out that Gumennik will do 5 and did it successfully at practice.
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2016
"If, if if... Doesn't exist" said Nadal.
I rather think the implosion is due to the immense pressure, both external and self-inflicted, in the here and now.
In the world of counterfactuals... Going to Beijing might not have helped him at all. What if he caught COVID? What if he underperformed and everyone was all "shoulda sent Jason"? What if he injured himself over-pushing? Could easily have dented his confidence and progression. Or even a good performance could make him even cockier, and less likely to listen to good advice, he was a teenager, after all.
And the Beijing Games were like no other, COVID bubbles, no crowds. Being there was quite different from being in Milan. Not to mention, the "pressure" on a 17-year old with virtually no international senior experience is completely different from the pressure Ilia faced now, and it's the pressure that got to him, not inexperience. Beijing wasn't a dress rehearsal for Milan.
What should have prepared him, is all the pressure he's dealt with being favourite in Worlds, GPF etc over the past few seasons, and the experience of skating on the same ice in the Team Comp, not something that coulda happened 4 years ago.
"Past is not a chain
but a thread"
I hope he does set the record straight in 4 years' time, but I wouldn't bet the house on it. Ice is slippery.
Maybe the anagrammatic coincidence of "In Milan" and "Malinin" was just too much for the cosmos to bear. Or maybe he should have leaned into it with his vampire programme.
I rather think the implosion is due to the immense pressure, both external and self-inflicted, in the here and now.
In the world of counterfactuals... Going to Beijing might not have helped him at all. What if he caught COVID? What if he underperformed and everyone was all "shoulda sent Jason"? What if he injured himself over-pushing? Could easily have dented his confidence and progression. Or even a good performance could make him even cockier, and less likely to listen to good advice, he was a teenager, after all.
And the Beijing Games were like no other, COVID bubbles, no crowds. Being there was quite different from being in Milan. Not to mention, the "pressure" on a 17-year old with virtually no international senior experience is completely different from the pressure Ilia faced now, and it's the pressure that got to him, not inexperience. Beijing wasn't a dress rehearsal for Milan.
What should have prepared him, is all the pressure he's dealt with being favourite in Worlds, GPF etc over the past few seasons, and the experience of skating on the same ice in the Team Comp, not something that coulda happened 4 years ago.
"Past is not a chain
but a thread"
I hope he does set the record straight in 4 years' time, but I wouldn't bet the house on it. Ice is slippery.
Maybe the anagrammatic coincidence of "In Milan" and "Malinin" was just too much for the cosmos to bear. Or maybe he should have leaned into it with his vampire programme.
May I say both of them could stand to skate better? Because they can.
And I really am getting fed up with the utter lack of scrutiny on the actual skating that went on with the men here (although one may rightly argue they don't wish to waste their time on it).
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2026
It seems like the last three skaters in the program were held together by something. The mutiple falls and stumbles by all three. What are the chances of that?
Was it psychological? Is anxiety catching?
Was it the ice?
Was it something else physical that affected all of them?
Any thoughts?
Was it psychological? Is anxiety catching?
Was it the ice?
Was it something else physical that affected all of them?
Any thoughts?
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2019
Your personal impression from the program can be a basis for personal placement, for sure, but despite three clean upper quads, some of the q/URs noted in Gumennik's program and GoE would change math, though not as significantly as imo the tech panel called.
Gumennik's program is a far cry from Rakhmaninov, and his choreo is slapstick that looks comic without a familiarity with Pushkin (and even with it, tbh), and it is not exactly a plus at the Olympics. Olympics are judged by International panel each of who comes from a country with its own rich heritage, not by a bunch of folks reared in a Soviet school in 1970s and 1980s. Gogolev was crisper, the music carries him, and he landed 3 quads flawlessly. Cha, despite the catastrophic mistake, had a big advantage from the short and does have advantage in PCS over either G-man, so he should have been in the running as well.
International scoring is an attempt to blend skating skill with jumping prowess, which is a legit approach, but it only works when they do not have either tech panel who is dead set against a specific competitor, or judges that have strong preliminary agreement on GoEs and PCSs. It's not necessarily cheating where they shake hands in a backroom. It is as simple as 9 specialists who had been doing it for decades watching practices of the same athletes and having it ingrained in their brains that a skater is a 9 in skating skill or an 8, and that his or hers GoE on a specific quad is 3 and higher.
Neither Gumennik nor Gogolev had that advantage of familiarity, but Gogolev had a huge advantage of just being the most memorable debute of teams competition. Plus, even if one or two judges were familair with either, giving them marks that are too high will either result in a strike of the mark or even problems for the judge.
Gumennik is a complete unknown after 4 years break. They are not used to how he skates, how he lands, etc. There is nothing that can change that for him or any other AIN skater in the future except access to competitions. And to access competitions, humility and gratitude is the way to go. So kudos to Gumennik for chosing it, and I hope more fans would as well. The big game here is not the olympic medal, it's the next season's access. AIN earning respectable but not in-your-face placements is better for the big picture. Obviously, it would have liked the 4th for Gumennik not 6th, due to prediction game, lol.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2015
I have mentioned this before about Ilia and maybe it is something worth repeating.
Performance anxiety is tricky. I believe that Ilia created this problem for himself because he is always chasing. He gives himself these challenges. For instance, landing all different types of quads in one program. Landing the first 4a-3t combo. Landing this or that new combo.
I don't know him, but sometimes performers who do set such challenges for themselves are also the kind who are looking for perfection in a performance.
I teach my kids this : do not go for perfection but for excellence.
What is the difference ?
Perfection means that after a mistake is made, the performance is then flawed. Confidence drops. The performer gets in their head and makes even more mistake. At the end of the performance, there is a feeling of WTH just happened ? It's all a blur. This happens often with figure skaters because of the "being clean" concept. My first skating love, Josée Chouinard, is perhaps the best example of a figure skating talent that never got fulfilled (it did in the professional circuit later on) during her career. Even commentators picked up on it : if Josée landed the first jump, then she had a good chance at a good program. As soon as there was a mistake, she would collapse. The pressure of perfection is what I believe killed Ilia's LP.
Excellence is trusting your training. Excellence is about a global level of performance. Not about every detail. In my field, micro mistakes happen all the time. Not only playing a wrong note, which is considered a bigger mistake but mistakes can be made many other ways : wrong touch, too much or too little sound, too much pedal, wrong attack of dynamic, wonky phrasing, missed opportunity for a colourful moment, etc etc. These are often not even perceptible by most people but are mistakes a perfectionist may get sidetracked with. Thinking about perfection is a recipe for failure because it makes the performer become self aware and judgmental about every single detail of their performance, leading to increased anxiety. A performer focused on excellence will look at things more globally and manage to avoid this increase in anxiety.
I believe that unfortunately, the approach Ilia has with competition, is probably closer to "perfection" than "excellence" with all the challenges he is setting. Too many ultimates. Too many challenges... too many records chased.
Also, even when a perfectionist performer succeeds their elements, often, this approach isn't as free. This is how, sometimes, an excellent performer can even surpass a perfect one as their performance breathes better.
Sorry for the long post
. Perhaps it does explain how Ilia felt... I cannot confirm what goes in his head obviously but from how the events have unfolded, I thought I'd make this suggestion...
Performance anxiety is tricky. I believe that Ilia created this problem for himself because he is always chasing. He gives himself these challenges. For instance, landing all different types of quads in one program. Landing the first 4a-3t combo. Landing this or that new combo.
I don't know him, but sometimes performers who do set such challenges for themselves are also the kind who are looking for perfection in a performance.
I teach my kids this : do not go for perfection but for excellence.
What is the difference ?
Perfection means that after a mistake is made, the performance is then flawed. Confidence drops. The performer gets in their head and makes even more mistake. At the end of the performance, there is a feeling of WTH just happened ? It's all a blur. This happens often with figure skaters because of the "being clean" concept. My first skating love, Josée Chouinard, is perhaps the best example of a figure skating talent that never got fulfilled (it did in the professional circuit later on) during her career. Even commentators picked up on it : if Josée landed the first jump, then she had a good chance at a good program. As soon as there was a mistake, she would collapse. The pressure of perfection is what I believe killed Ilia's LP.
Excellence is trusting your training. Excellence is about a global level of performance. Not about every detail. In my field, micro mistakes happen all the time. Not only playing a wrong note, which is considered a bigger mistake but mistakes can be made many other ways : wrong touch, too much or too little sound, too much pedal, wrong attack of dynamic, wonky phrasing, missed opportunity for a colourful moment, etc etc. These are often not even perceptible by most people but are mistakes a perfectionist may get sidetracked with. Thinking about perfection is a recipe for failure because it makes the performer become self aware and judgmental about every single detail of their performance, leading to increased anxiety. A performer focused on excellence will look at things more globally and manage to avoid this increase in anxiety.
I believe that unfortunately, the approach Ilia has with competition, is probably closer to "perfection" than "excellence" with all the challenges he is setting. Too many ultimates. Too many challenges... too many records chased.
Also, even when a perfectionist performer succeeds their elements, often, this approach isn't as free. This is how, sometimes, an excellent performer can even surpass a perfect one as their performance breathes better.
Sorry for the long post
. Perhaps it does explain how Ilia felt... I cannot confirm what goes in his head obviously but from how the events have unfolded, I thought I'd make this suggestion...
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2019
My explanation is simpler:
The Olympic favorite curse that was invented by the internet is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That got Ilia no matter how he tried to ignore it.
The other top guys skated as they do on average corrected for the pressure of the overhyped once per 4 years competition and unfamiliar training grounds. Fa is a powerful but heavier-framed skater, so he can't correct on the fly as easily as more nimble guys. Kagiyama always and forever skated free skate with multiple jumping errors; he actually did better than he sometimes does because he let the perfomance go; otherwise he'd have fallen. Same goes for Cha, except he remained committed, and that fall was hard and prolonged (i hope he recovered). Grassl always struggles with fully rotating his content when put together in one program, and being in his home country multiplies pressure. Sato was gassed out by the last jumping pass the way he always is. That leaves Shaidorov who was coming fresh into competition and had a slow start of the season so he wasn't involved into a ah... blade-size measuring contest between US and Japan's champs since September, that reached the feaver pitch only days earlier in teams.
Anyway, it was all psychological ahd hormonal. Maybe, they had a coordinated male PMS there.
The Olympic favorite curse that was invented by the internet is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That got Ilia no matter how he tried to ignore it.
The other top guys skated as they do on average corrected for the pressure of the overhyped once per 4 years competition and unfamiliar training grounds. Fa is a powerful but heavier-framed skater, so he can't correct on the fly as easily as more nimble guys. Kagiyama always and forever skated free skate with multiple jumping errors; he actually did better than he sometimes does because he let the perfomance go; otherwise he'd have fallen. Same goes for Cha, except he remained committed, and that fall was hard and prolonged (i hope he recovered). Grassl always struggles with fully rotating his content when put together in one program, and being in his home country multiplies pressure. Sato was gassed out by the last jumping pass the way he always is. That leaves Shaidorov who was coming fresh into competition and had a slow start of the season so he wasn't involved into a ah... blade-size measuring contest between US and Japan's champs since September, that reached the feaver pitch only days earlier in teams.
Anyway, it was all psychological ahd hormonal. Maybe, they had a coordinated male PMS there.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2015
I believe that the Olympic favourite curse existed way before the internet. Talk to Kurt Browning about it.
He was upset, and just let it out. Ilia said it himself. Not going to Beijing, made him train very hard and prove that he is an amazing skater. He credits that decision for his motivation and determination to be the best. He continued to train his quad axel, and increased the amount of quad jumps, even working on his choreography. All of the hours of training can be stressful and extremely exhausting.Ilia should not have been sent to Beijing under the application of the rules as they were then. His team tried a run-around the rules, it didn't work, end of story. The Olympics are not a training ground for young athletes. Also, dear skating gods in heaven, this was four years ago, Time to move on.
And not getting sent to Beijing has Jackson B. Squat to do with Ilia's meltdown here. If he actually does believe that, that's a problem for him and he won't improve. As my man Jalen Hurts (yes, not this sport
I think Ilia will learn. I choose to believe it was a heated remark in the heat of the moment and that he will study, he will dissect and figure out what actually happened, and go forward.
- Status
Similar threads
