U.S. Men 2025-26 Discussion - Quad God and the Mere Mortals

[Sylvia]

Well, he'll be in good company. Kurt Browning doesn't have an Olympic gold either.

It's still mind-boggling to me that Kurt doesn't have an Olympic MEDAL!

Can people outside the USA watch NBC Sports' Andrea Joyce's interview with Ilia as soon as he had finished his FS?

NBC Olympics & Paralympics on Instagram: "An honest Ilia Malinin after a disappointing free skate."

9,554 likes, 400 comments - nbcolympics on February 13, 2026: "An honest Ilia Malinin after a disappointing free skate.".

www.instagram.com

 

[skatfan]

Oh, please, there was no such message. Your obsession with Jason is leading you to post some really ridiculous stuff. (But, hey, at least it's not super nasty and gleefully celebrating when an athlete has his worst day!) Each time Andrew took the ice at Worlds, he had no way of knowing if Jason would earn another spot for next year since Jason skated after him. All the guys knew that Jason could possibly (but not necessarily) earn a third spot at Worlds and the Olympics, but if they wanted to be on that next team, they had to make it happen for themselves. And they all were a mess. It's not like these guys went to competitions and said to themselves, I don't care how I place. Do you really think that Andrew didn't care about how he did at Worlds?



Why? Raf is a jump doctor. Even with skaters based in California, he reportedly doesn't do a lot more than that. Ilia does not need more help with his jumps. Raf has been one of his coaches for years, saw what happened with Nathan when the American media's focus and sponsors expectations were on him, and doesn't seem to have been able to help Ilia. Having read what Nathan wrote and listening to what Mariah, Ashley, and Adam have said about Raf, I don't see how spending more time with Raf would help at all.

I think Ilia needs the name of the sports psychologist Nathan used leading up to 2022.

 

[Sylvia]

Tomoki Hiwatash i樋渡知樹 posted 3 times on X:

Feb 10:
So happy for all three US Men's today!!!!
You all are amazing!!
Good luck in Free skate too!!

Feb. 13:
So proud of the US Men athletes for fighting till the end. Hoping they can all get a good rest and enjoy the rest of the experience being at Milan.
It's also amazing how I've been able to compete with almost everyone at Olympic.
Congrats to everyone there!!! https://x.com/Tomostar0120/status/2022532784951337149

 

[AYS]

I am so sad for Ilia, and for us fans who he's thrilled over the past 2-3 years.

I do have to say it was either coaching or athlete malpractice to go for the quad axel when skating from ahead for Olympic gold (if he was way behind, it would have been worth the risk). He did not need it, but there was always the potential for it to rattle him it to go right. Hindsight, blah, blah, but I was literally yelling at the screen when he took his starting position not to do it.

My feeling is he might have taken the winning part a little for granted here and was too focused on the history part.

 

[Sylvia]

Arizona figure skater Camden Pulkinen reflects on missing Olympics by Erika Tulfo, a graduate student at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism (Feb. 7, 2026): https://www.azcentral.com/story/spo...lkinen-reflects-missing-olympics/88571569007/
Excerpts:

In a December Instagram post, he told supporters he was making the difficult decision to withdraw from the 2026 U.S. Championships, effectively ending his chances of qualifying for the Olympics. “I've done 20 years of skating in my life so far and I've worked my whole life for this, but I don't want to be crippled at 25 and not be able to move anymore,” Pulkinen said a week ago via Zoom.
“The Olympic motto is ‘faster, higher, stronger,’ and I internalize that in everything I do, but I don't think that should come at the cost of your quality of life or your body or your mental health.”

“From the time he was little, he just had that ability to catch on to things quickly,” said his former coach Karen Gesell. “He’s a big jumper, he’s very charismatic, and he carried that onto the ice in his programs.”
Gesell trained Pulkinen when he started skating at the Ice Den Scottsdale with the Coyotes Skating Club and was with him for 10 years throughout his meteoric rise to his junior debut at the 2016 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
“His goal was always to go as far as he could go, and I always saw he had the potential to be an Olympian,” Gesell said.
Pulkinen has come close to the Olympics before. In 2016, he skated at the Winter Youth Olympics in Hamar, Norway, making him the first male figure skater to compete as part of Team USA for the men’s singles event. In 2022, he was even selected as an alternate for the American team at the Beijing Olympics alongside Malinin, current Team USA athlete and gold-medal favorite.
“I was really in that next cream of the crop that was ready to go,” he said. “I was ready to push from 2022 until 2026 for the Games. I failed to recognize that four years is a long time. This season is the one that really matters. No one really remembers what you did in 2024, 2023 or 2022. 2026 is the Olympics.”

Pulkinen had been battling lower back pain he said was caused by taking too many hard falls on the ice. What began as a persistent dull ache, grew to the point of crippling whenever he moved, which made training impossible.
He first recognized the signs of a severe injury after his performance at the 2025 Four Continents Championships in Seoul, South Korea, where he finished eighth.
“I remember clutching my back as soon as I finished my free skate in Korea last year,” he said. “I've always had back pain through skating, but never to the point of crippling back pain where I couldn't actually skate.”
Pulkinen admits he has always been an overachiever. He continued to compete from 2021 through 2025 while he was a full-time student at Columbia University and a corporate strategy associate at Capital One.
But with his injury forcing him to take a step back from skating, he said he had time to reflect on his life independent of the sport.
“What I miss most is moving on the ice freely and carving my soul and identity into the ice,” he said in his December Instagram post. “To have that taken from me is the deepest pain, one that carries the weight of feeling as though I have let down past versions of myself.”

But Pulkinen’s absence from this year’s Olympics has raised questions in online fan spaces about the future of his skating career. The next Winter Olympics are set to take place in 2030 in the French Alps, and Pulkinen will be 29, past the age most male competitive figure skaters retire.
Pulkinen said it’s still too early to make a call on whether he would try to qualify for the next Winter Olympics, but one thing’s for sure. He plans on staying on the ice one way or another.
“I'm not closing the door to skating,” he said. “I love the sport. I don't know if that means I make a run for 2030. I don't know if that means I take a different role like a coach or choreographer. The thing that's true is I will never not be a skater.”

 

[Debbie S]

It's still mind-boggling to me that Kurt doesn't have an Olympic MEDAL!

And he's had a pretty good career in show skating and doing choreo. He's had a better career than some Oly medalists.

Ilia is a great performer. We've seen that in his gala programs, like the NF number and To Build a Home at Worlds last year. And he choreos most of them himself. He's talked about wanting to improve the non-jump aspects of his skating.

Can people outside the USA watch NBC Sports' Andrea Joyce's interview with Ilia as soon as he had finished his FS?

NBC Olympics & Paralympics on Instagram: "An honest Ilia Malinin after a disappointing free skate."

9,554 likes, 400 comments - nbcolympics on February 13, 2026: "An honest Ilia Malinin after a disappointing free skate.".

www.instagram.com

Yes, but i'm using a VPN.