2026 Olympics: Men's Free Skate

[freedomlover]

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.

"blade-size measuring contest"

 

[freedomlover]

To be honest I am still in disbelief. Not at the podium itself but at how this happened. I only followed relatively close to Beijing , and it was during COVID so you couldn't see how crowds had an effect but wow.
I mean okay, I think we did have more first time Olympians than in 2022 but wow.
Hope the men can regroup for Worlds because man.

 

[kimganos]

botched landings doesn't always mean under-rotation. Sometimes, it's even over-rotation (not saying it was Yuma's case). Yuma's salchow was fine. His flip was also fine. At least, to me in real time. Petr's first jumps were good and received good GOE considering they are not coming out of much choreography at all and don't have much speed at landing. But his two salchows I saw as short in real time. So I don't think his jumps were overly scrutinized. The last 3 jumping passes : he was gassed ... and I am not surprised they were also short.

This being said, I wonder really if Yuma was propped. His PCS were lower than usual, lower than Cha's.

I think Shun had a more solid skate obviously except for his spins and his final lutz. He doesn't have Yuma's interpretation skills though.

Would I have liked Gogo to medal ? Yes. He had the cleanest skate out there aside from Misha. But that's life... going in as "unknown" didn't help him. His SP PCS should have been slightly higher.

this

This isn't the first time? Ugh. I didn't know that. That's even worse, then. There's a sense of entitlement here, evidently. As for the young part, he's the same age as another American who made more Olympic history today: Jordan Stolz. Age 21. Speedskater. I love the guy. Mature. Dedicated. Relentless. He's already won his first two gold medals in two different events and he will go for his third next week. His nickname given to him by skaters in the Netherlands is, "The Jet."

I don't want to hear one more person use Ilia's age for an excuse. Immaturity rings true. And I agree with you, he owes USFS an apology. They were simply following their own criteria for 2022 selection and that should have been the end of the story. Success can be failure turned inside out. I hope Ilia learns that.

I'm sure Ilia realizes what he said and is sorry for his comment and reaction. He hugged and congratulated Misha immediately afterwards when he was still devastated, shocked and saddened by his own skate. That's what I'll remember....

 

[lariko]

To be honest I am still in disbelief. Not at the podium itself but at how this happened. I only followed relatively close to Beijing , and it was during COVID so you couldn't see how crowds had an effect but wow.
I mean okay, I think we did have more first time Olympians than in 2022 but wow.
Hope the men can regroup for Worlds because man.

Worlds will be better. Since so many skaters skate on the margin of what is possible for them, every little thing makes a difference. I always have a cynical smile when skaters mention, for example, food poisoning because I have an inkling it's not sampling the exotic cuisines that causes the issue but the simplest straightforward method that is not forbidden by the WADA. Diuretics are a no-no, but laxatives are a fair game.

 

[withwings]

E L L A D J B A L D É on Instagram: "Figure Skating is one of the hardest sports mentally. The pressure is unbelievably heavy and there is no margin for error. Tonight was a tough one but I am so proud of all of these skaters for the work they have

76K likes, 1,160 comments - elladjbalde on February 13, 2026: "Figure Skating is one of the hardest sports mentally. The pressure is unbelievably heavy and there is no margin for error. Tonight was a tough one but I am so proud of all of these skaters for the work they have put in to get here...

www.instagram.com

reaction of skaters

 

[slider11]

I just continue to gain respect for Ilia for his professionalism and maturity in handling this monumental defeat. The pressure got to him. As his long program vocals stated, "The only thing you know is that you know nothing."

Take a year off and go to college, stay skating if that means more to you. I hope we see you in 4 years, Ilia; you are a credit to the sport!

 

[CoyoteChris]

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.

I agree and what stood out in your posts was the lack of enjoyable programs, like Jason's riverdance. tech weighs more than artistry. A few of you might remember the olys where they had these short, funny segmants. A russian voice would come on and say things like, "Ahhhhhh.... beautiful figure skating.....and then he would say what the heck? and on the screen would be a bunch of people splatting, and he would go off half cocked on what figure skating had become....due to the weight of quads over artistry and expression.
I would rather watch Jason's Riverdance.

 

[Cindy1983]

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...

What do you do?

I pointed out that Ilia struck me as a perfectionist.

He also does better when he has a rival. Once his main rivals faded away and it was there for the taking, he collapsed. Some skaters need that thing that makes them rise to the occasion. For example, in the TF, placing behind the Japanese skater gave him the little extra he needed to kill it in the TF Free.

Having a genuinely bad skate may have been his worst fear. He face that.

If you want to read my full thoughts on Ilia’s skate, go to page 101 or 102.

 

[4everchan]

What do you do?

I pointed out that Ilia struck me as a perfectionist.

He also does better when he has a rival. Once his main rivals faded away and it was there for the taking, he collapsed. Some skaters need that thing that makes them rise to the occasion. For example, in the TF, placing behind the Japanese skater gave him the little extra he needed to kill it in the TF Free.

Having a genuinely bad skate may have been his worst fear. He face that.

If you want to read my full thoughts on Ilia’s skate, go to page 101 or 102.

I am a pianist

 

[Cindy1983]

I agree and what stood out in your posts was the lack of enjoyable programs, like Jason's riverdance. tech weighs more than artistry. A few of you might remember the olys where they had these short, funny segmants. A russian voice would come on and say things like, "Ahhhhhh.... beautiful figure skating.....and then he would say what the heck? and on the screen would be a bunch of people splatting, and he would go off half cocked on what figure skating had become....due to the weight of quads over artistry and expression.
I would rather watch Jason's Riverdance.

I agree 10,000%. I miss entertaining figure skating. By the way, congrats the Andrew Torgashev for having a great Olympic competition. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. He’s the forgotten American skater. He wasn’t a medal contender. He didn’t have Naumauv’s (spelling?) story. He was just there.

 

[Blades of Passion]

You absolutely cannot use inflated Nationals scores as a barometer of how skaters are going to be scored internationally

It's obvious that Ilia's programs would score higher than Jason's - the basic math of having so many quads compared to none. And, indeed, as already stated, Ilia went to 2022 Worlds and scored higher internationally in the SP than Jason ever had.

OTOH, not being sent to Olympic Games impacting your results at your first OG 4 years later? Debatable, to say the least.

Yes it's debatable, but it's Ilia's direct personal opinion, being the person who was actually out there, not you, that he was hindered by not being given that experience. He felt overwhelmed in the moment by the Olympic experience, and feels he wouldn't have been if he'd already experienced it before.

That's a totally normal thought to have and it's not just some kind of personal excuse to oneself. Life experiences change people. Like, when you go on a first date with someone you're super into, you'll probably be nervous. But then the second date, not as much. Hundreds of different examples could be used. It's very silly to argue that getting Olympic experience is not something that can potentially help a person. Especially when listening to the number of athletes who've talked about it. And any game in existence, the more you play and learn about it, the better you get (until you hit a certain skill ceiling).

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.

He didn't change anything because of Gumennik, LOL. The quad flip is already something Shaidarov would naturally want to add to his program if possible, to challenge Yuma and Adam, and 5 quads is already something that's been happening since 2017. That jump also didn't change anything about his placement. He would have won the competition without it.

 

[Arigato]

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.

Before taking the ice for his Free Skate at 2002 OLYG, Yagudin asked Tatiana: "How many quads do I need to do?" I'm not sure what your problem is but changing the planned jump content in Men's skating is nothing unusual and has been done by Yagudin, Plushenko, Hanyu, Uno, Malinin, Shaidorov (allegedly) and everyone in between.

Gumennik had a high number of jumps under review and a high number of points wiped off his slate. I watched his skating for the past year. They were not calling out his jump landings on a domestic level. I knew once he got out on the international stage, they would inevitably be called out. Someone needs to get him to realize he has work to do rather than coddling him with false praise.

 

[shan22044]

I don't want figures back, I want non jumping elements of programs to have more BV.
Each fed has own rules for certifications - US and Canada have insane amounts of programs and tests to be even allowed to compete. Mine has 0 tests, when you enter the competition, you declare your level TBH with like 5 ice rinks operating in the summer for whole country and very limited ice available for FS any system with tests and certifications isn't possible. Martial arts have internatiolnal system of belts and each color of belt is supposed to know the same techniques, but it's much easier to train martial arts than FS because of infrastructure needed.

Thanks for your thoughts. During my brief time doing Tae Kwon Do at a dojo that has a national legacy, the system of testing for belts did feel like a bit of a cash grab to be honest.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

I agree and what stood out in your posts was the lack of enjoyable programs, like Jason's riverdance. tech weighs more than artistry. A few of you might remember the olys where they had these short, funny segmants. A russian voice would come on and say things like, "Ahhhhhh.... beautiful figure skating.....and then he would say what the heck? and on the screen would be a bunch of people splatting, and he would go off half cocked on what figure skating had become....due to the weight of quads over artistry and expression.
I would rather watch Jason's Riverdance.

There is also the question of whether nurturing young talent is a compelling reason to favor them for certain competitions, especially the Olympics where the placements aren’t used to earn spots in upcoming events. Jason has earned a lot of world assignments based on his strong results and the selection criteria, but each time another young skater missed out on an assignment. Most of the time Jason is the best choice because of his ability to complement a higher placing skater to retain three spots, but two occasions of a young silver medalist getting passed over (Vincent for worlds and Ilya last Olympics) were things that I could see being extremely demoralizing.

 

[Greengemmonster]

It’s been 4 years and I’m still b*tching about the decision not to send Ilia in 2022. Hell I subjected my family to a 20 minute rant about it after the men’s competition despite being semi happy because Shun medaled. It’s completely understandable that Ilia would have that thought and voice it to his father after one of the most crushing moments in his life.

Poor thing. Those photos of him walking off the ice are heartbreaking. I will continue to follow him and send him my best wishes. Onwards and upwards!

 

[Greengemmonster]

Worlds will be better. Since so many skaters skate on the margin of what is possible for them, every little thing makes a difference. I always have a cynical smile when skaters mention, for example, food poisoning because I have an inkling it's not sampling the exotic cuisines that causes the issue but the simplest straightforward method that is not forbidden by the WADA. Diuretics are a no-no, but laxatives are a fair game.

Is this the same person who had some issues in regards to their drug tests? Or am I thinking of someone else?

 

[Greengemmonster]

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?

Yuma is nervy. Not the first time he’s like this so it’s on brand for him.

I don’t know much about Adam but he’s volatile from what I’ve seen.

Ilia— I don’t know….. he’s always been so stable. Yes he’s had less than ideal skates but not a complete meltdown. He’s not the type where you sigh and say “Well Ilia is gonna Ilia.” I blame it on the pressure and the Olympic moment and like someone previously stated him possibly wanting perfection rather than “good enough.”

 

[lariko]

Is this the same person who had some issues in regards to their drug tests? Or am I thinking of someone else?

Anyone, really. Skaters bring up food poisoning quite regulary, and I once listened to a candid interview about the overuse of laxatives by a former high level ice dancer which eventually leads to organ failure. Now I side-eye food poisoning statements. I hope that at some point WADA looks into this.

 

[Greengemmonster]

Anyone, really. Skaters bring up food poisoning quite regulary, and I once listened to a candid interview about the overuse of laxatives by a former high level ice dancer which eventually leads to organ failure. Now I side-eye food poisoning statements. I hope that at some point WADA looks into this.

Don’t they time them to work at the certain time? I have a friend who takes one every few days (for movement because she needs the help) and she’s absolutely fine. She times it so it doesn’t hit her at the wrong time. Never had an issue when we go out together or holiday together etc

 

[lariko]

Don’t they time them to work at the certain time? I have a friend who takes one every few days (for movement because she needs the help) and she’s absolutely fine. She times it so it doesn’t hit her at the wrong time. Never had an issue when we go out together or holiday together etc

Unfortunately not if they keep increasing the dose with misuse. This is obviously not a prescribed controlled use.