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

[DreamSkates]

I think perhaps Ilia was a victim of his own huge media success? 'Quad God' really took off. Everyone from Novak Djokovic to Simone Biles were coming to see him skate. I don't think Nathan quite had that level of intensity and he competed at an Olympics to nearly an empty stadium due to YKW. I had people at work and my housekeeper with zero interest in skating stop to watch him skate yesterday. I can't imagine the pressure that placed on his young shoulders.

I made a joke yesterday and posted in the wrong thread. But I brought up the Witt / Frau Mueller strategy of watching your competitors and then skating strategically. They left out attempts at 3F in Sarajevo based on what they saw in practice were Roz's abilities. Team Ilia was aware that Yuma and Adam for that matter performed poorly. Why not do a gut check before going on the ice and water it down? No 4A (for the record, Ilia seemed to unravel when he popped it) and no 4L for starters. Perhaps skate your nationals performance? It would at least have put him in a fight for the top spot w/ a lead after the SP. But I understand that there probably was a desire to measure up to the media narrative that had been built over the course of time, but if he walked away w/ OGM after skating 3-5 quad program (Shaidorov wins LP, but say Ilia wins OGM based on lead after SP, and I think Judges would have put Ilia's PCS above Shaidorov if he stood up) He could have still vaunted his success because he would've won.

All conjecture at this point.

Yes. I also think he was pushed by media. Tara Lapinski said he should go for 4A and make a name for himself. He didn't need that to win. Don't know what his coaches said. Gut check very important. Be honest with yourself.

 

[DreamSkates]

Remember that Beijing was during the pandemic and an entirely different atmosphere. No fans. Much less media.

Yes there was a pandemic but that didn't make it any less, THE Olympics. Still hype and pressure.

 

[VGThuy]

The truth is, Ilia had this served on a silver platter. He was conditioned to enjoy like a 30 point advantage over his closest competitors in the LP alone, was first after the SP, and his biggest threats all imploded as well. Everything was set up for him to win, and he got that dream program and whatever else get into this head and had that sort of performance. He probably didn’t prepare for what occurred and didn’t have the muscle memory for a plan B in case he messed up both the Axel and Quad Loop. To me, that’s something that could happen to any athlete no matter what experience they had. It could be a training issue, a hubris issue, him falling for his own hype at 21, a media issue, etc. Rafael was there to guide him with his parents and it all still happened. It’s sport. We can find every scapegoat in the world, but in the end, it’s just looking for a villain to blame this all on when there is none.

Sometimes, people choke. It doesn’t make one a bad person or even a bad competitor. It just makes them human.

 

[CassAgain]

There is a world in which Ilia and team decline to skate the team free, he has a silver team medal, and he has the same individual result. He has shown the last three years that he’s a champion, and champions do hard things like help their country win gold. This SUCKS right now—I can only imagine how he feels and how his family and close friends feel. I think his parents have been through tough situations and will help him pick himself up.

And surely Jason Brown should not be catching strays.

 

[Private Citizen]

If Ilia goes to Worlds, and I think he probably will, I’d tweak his jump layout. His 4F is like money these days, while that second 4Lz has been more miss than hit than this season.

I’d aim to do two fewer quads, more quads earlier, and at least one combo in the first half of the program.

For example:
4F+3T
4F
4Lz
3A
4S+3A
4T+1eu+3F
3Lz

 

[Karen-W]

I want to make it clear, I do not blame Jason for the USFS' decision to send him to Beijing over Ilia. I place all the responsibility for that on the Int'l Committee.

Also, I'm not out to discredit the contributions Jason had made to the USA having three spots in 2022 and for 2024-2026. His results have been just as critical as Nathan's in 2021 and Ilia's in 2023-25.

None of that changes the fact that he was not a medal contender nor was he a future prospect in 2022. The point at which he finished 4th at Nationals & in a situation where the youngster smoked both Vincent & Jason by 13 points should have been a moment where the Int'l Committee did a real gut check & been honest with themselves about the best choice for the future of the Men's discipline in the US.

I appreciate that Torgashev has finally been able to put together two pretty decent programs at a major championship competition. I argued this entire last Olympic cycle that our US men need to learn how to step up & deliver consistently or they didn't deserve the 3 spots and that the USFS using Jason the way they were was not, overall, good for the long-term health of the Men's discipline in the US. It felt very much like Andrew had that mental breakthrough with this competition. The US would have been better off with these guys the past 4 years had they been treated like anything/everything depended on them rather than subconsciously telling them they could fart around & under-deliver every time because Jason would come through.

And, again, I'm not blaming Jason for that. This is on the USFS for repeatedly relying on a guy who was in the twilight of his career and whose jumps were, like Marco Fabbri's twizzles, degrading in real time for anyone with eyes to see. And there were PLENTY of fans last season who were in absolute denial about Fabbri's degrading skills who only really accepted that reality this past fall. It's a damn shame it took an absolute meltdown at Nationals for the Int'l Committee to do this year what it should have done in 2022. And, frankly, they still didn't have the guts to fully do it since they named Jason to the Worlds team. Again, not blaming Jason - there's no responsibility on his part as a skater to tell the Int'l Committee how to do its job for the long-term good of the Men's discipline once Jason or any other skater hangs up their competitive skates.

 

[Vagabond]

Back when I was a student in England, there was graffiti in the men's room at the History Faculty Library that said, "What if counterfactual history were the accepted norm?"

There is no telling what would have happened then or subsequently if Malinin had gone to Beijing.

As for Torgashev, he has always had the potential to skate this well, but injuries and nerves got in his way until now.

 

[Spiralgraph]

Ilia needs to decompress for a while. If it were me, I'd stay away from all media for a few days, be surrounded by friends family and coaches and chill. Then make a plan for Worlds if he decides to go.

In retrospect, one of the best things Nathan had was a worthy domestic competitor in Vincent. Vincent attempted practically the same number of quads as Nathan and although not as consistant as Nathan Chen, he was always there ready to take advantage of any mistake. That's what Ilia needs. Real competition not winning by 60 points.

 

[becca]

For me the issue isn’t just about Jason and Illia but the fact that I felt they were rewarding Jason for never improving his jumps and simultaneously punishing Illia for pushing the technical envelope

Like of course Jason is going to be the more consistent skater his jump content was easier than all the other men. He was just hoping others would fall. And I am sure Jason would have those quads if you could but he didn’t.


Trying a six quad program and getting it stablized is difficult. So of course at 15/17 Illia will be inconsistent.

But you have to encourage your young men to do it and you have to reward the young men who do because otherwise your never going to have a US man on the Olympic or World program.

Hoping others fall is not a winning strategy.

If you look at Vincent yes his lows were much lower than Jason’s or Adam Rippons but his highs were also higher and you felt comfortable giving Nathan a break in Beijing.

I am all for body of work but when you are looking at body of work you also need to factor in that their results showed they were never competitive for the top results when you show a young skater who is displaying the ability to be competitive

 

[VGThuy]

Oh lord. Ilia wasn’t being punished. The had a system and Jason won medals in senior international Grand Prix events that year. Excuse him for being amazing despite being quadless.

Sorry you find Jason’s competitive history pathetic, but him being named was not an unreasonable or irrational choice even if you disagree with it.

But it’s all directly or indirectly Jason’s fault as to why Ilia had the skate he had yesterday.

 

[fsfann]

Well, let’s see - so far the blame for what happened to Ilia has gone to USFS, the media, Jason Brown. I assume the ice and the weather will be next.

How about we assign the primary blame where it lies? Namely to Ilia Malinin and his parents/coaches.

This will not be a popular opinion but maybe a little less focus on being the “Quad God,” and things like melodramatic voiceovers in his program, a little less ego overall would have also helped here and potentially not left him panicking and melting down when he made the first mistake.

I’m not trying to be nasty here, but he and his team bear the responsibility for setting him up to be invincible in everyone’s eyes in the individual event, and then when the problems started, he didn’t have the capacity to deal with them on the fly like he did in the team event where he wasn’t solely responsible for the medal outcome. I’m not putting this all on him - his parents/coaches should also share in the blame for not preparing him better and letting the media narrative just take over and become way too much for any athlete to navigate.

Put simply - take that dayum “Quad God” shirt and burn it. I love Ilia, but every time I saw him strut in wearing that thing I cringed. The “only every 4 years” American fans don’t take kindly to egotistical displays like that when the athlete doesn’t come through as expected. I’m hoping the gracious way he handled the outcome will temper their response and that he can enjoy the rest of the games and cheer on his teammates.

totally agree re the shirt. SO Cringy. It's one thing for others to call you teh quad god but to strut around in a shirt saying it is just tacky and very arrogant looking in my opinion.

 

[Karen-W]

Oh lord. Ilia wasn’t being punished. The had a system and Jason won medals in senior international Grand Prix events that year. Excuse him for being amazing despite being quadless.

Again, the system put Jason & Ilia in the same priority group once Nationals was finished.

Yes, Jason had senior results that Ilia did not, but that is more a result of the 2020 JGP being entirely canceled so Ilia's options were - 2 guaranteed JGP assignments or maybe 1 SkAm host GP & whatever Challenger assignments he could muster up between Covid restrictions & the other US men vying for those assignments. He & his team chose the JGP assignments and he did very well in those.

Ultimately, the USFS placed more value on those senior results than on the junior ones, then completely ignored the Nationals results. There was nothing in the selection criteria that said they'd weigh senior results more heavily than junior ones. Had that been made clear, perhaps Ilia's team would have chosen a SkAm host assignment & 2-3 Challengers instead of the JGP.

There are all sorts of ways to pretzel-logic oneself into believing that placing Jason on the 2022 Olympic team over Ilia was the correct choice. Time has proven it was not.

 

[becca]

Oh lord. Ilia wasn’t being punished. The had a system and Jason won medals in senior international Grand Prix events that year. Excuse him for being amazing despite being quadless.

Sorry you find Jason’s competitive history pathetic, but him being named was not an unreasonable or irrational choice even if you disagree with it.

But it’s all directly or indirectly Jason’s fault as to why Ilia had the skate he had yesterday.

Illia was being punished for being

1. Young and not having even the opportunity to earn two GP spots.

2. Being inconsistent because he was actually going for competitive content.

3 Jason was a beautiful skater but his fate was always in other skaters hands.

 

[Sylvia]

Excerpts from Robert Samuels' article on the Men's FS that he had so been looking forward to covering in person ("How I'd measure the most exciting days of my life: 1. Day I learned my co-author and I won the Pulitzer. 2. Today, being able to write from the men's final at the Olympics. 3. Wedding. 4. Day I learned I got into the Bronx Science.") - gift linked by him on X here last night: https://x.com/newsbysamuels/status/2022508795822219579

Only the pettiest haters would imagine such a harsh word would lead to a discussion about Malinin. Shockingly, here we are. But to understand why Malinin faltered, it’s important to consider the conditions in which he has thrived.
Malinin is a self-described adrenaline junkie. He embraces the idea of conqueror like no other American skater. In major international competitions — such as the 2024 world championships, the 2025 grand prix final and even the team event at these 2026 games — his most thrilling skating came after he fell behind in the first phase of competition.
On Friday, he at first appeared to be feeding off the Olympic energy. When he initially stepped on the ice for the top six skaters’ final warmup, he made fun faces with the camera man and coolly glided on the ice. [...]
The gold medal had been practically polished and gift wrapped, but his shoulders were high, and he appeared to be taking deep breaths to calm any doubt inside his head.
Other Olympic champions had chosen big characters and big music to seize victory. In 2022, Nathan Chen was Rocketman sailing to an Elton John medley; in 2018, Yuzuru Hanyu channeled a samurai.
But Malinin chose to channel himself and his vulnerability, skating to his own voice delivering quiet affirmations that he hoped described the man inside the persona of the “Quadg0d” — something he admitted was a bit of a bravado joke at first, until he was so good that it stuck. Even he got tired of talking about the handle.
His free skate’s blend of internal intimacy and extraordinary technical prowess was supposed to be the path to his first individual gold medal, then a second in 2030 and a third in 2034, as well as a resurgent popularity in the sport he loved. That’s a lot of thinking ahead for a man balancing on boots attached to knives, slipping on ice.

His first quadruple jump, taking off on the side of the blade in between his legs, was tremendous. But then he unfurled when he launched into the jump that the world had wanted to see, his trademark quadruple axel. He could only manage a single rotation.
The problems continued to cascade, and his trademark jumping technique seemed to vanish, even when he took off from one his best jumps, the quadruple lutz. In a disappointing competition, it became clear that Malinin’s voice echoing throughout the arena was not simply to help the crowd — it was to help him, a 21-year-old, appropriately emotional, who was buried under the weight of his longing for perfection, his natural talent, his country’s high expectations and his own nickname.
“I don’t want to tell people that I’m untouchable,” Malinin said in an interview a month ago. “I want to do the opposite. I want people to relate to me. Even though, yes, I’m doing all these crazy things on the ice and defying physics, I want them to see that all of us, skaters, we’re still human beings.”
“The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing,” Malinin’s voice says at the beginning of the program, using a quote attributed to Socrates. Before he started jumping, the record instructs us — him — to “embrace the storm.”
When the Olympics are over, Malinin must face another challenge: embracing quiet. Quieting the torrent of emotions and criticism that will come from others — and himself — will be key as he works toward an individual Olympic gold medal that still seems inevitable.

 

[Yazmeen]

Oh lord. Ilia wasn’t being punished. The had a system and Jason won medals in senior international Grand Prix events that year. Excuse him for being amazing despite being quadless.

Sorry you find Jason’s competitive history pathetic, but him being named was not an unreasonable or irrational choice even if you disagree with it.

But it’s all directly or indirectly Jason’s fault as to why Ilia had the skate he had yesterday.

Well, DO remember that there are a number of fans who simply cannot tolerate a "quadless journeyman" in this age of skating.

From Evan Lysacek to Jason Brown, I will be very happy to NEVER read or hear this idiotic term again. Jason will remain a fan favorite for many, and Ilia will recover from this nightmare and likely come back even stronger - but hopefully, concentrating on more than just the quads having realized jumping prowess can fail even the best "Quad God" in a pressure-packed circumstance.

 

[VGThuy]

The article above makes me think of MBTI. I know it’s not a real science and is more akin to woo woo astrology (no offense to anyone), but I find the Jungian concepts of cognitive functions helpful.

Samuels touches upon something about Malinin being an adrenaline junkie and use of the voiceover affirmations. IMO, he’s a clear ESTP, where his default mode is to chase sensations in the external (extroverted sensing), supported by introverted thinking, and with a tertiary child-position extroverted feeling following. This means his introverted feeling function is his blindspot.

This is why I was worried when he mentioned Beijing after his skate. If Ilia holds onto the attitude that he “would’ve won gold if only he’d been in Beijing,” and he keeps that resentment alive as the explanation for what goes wrong now, he’s setting himself up for another rough Olympics. Even if you think USFS made the wrong call in 2022, staying emotionally chained to that grievance is going to fester and distort his self-assessment with introverted feeling being his blindspot. He can be angry about it and still recognize that it won’t help him skate better in the present or future.

His tertiary or child position extroverted feeling function is why all the social media posts gassing him up and openly blaming the USFS and Beijing team selection can be harmful…it is where fans can actually hurt him. If he lets the fanbase get in his head and validate this complete blame to where he adopts the mindset that his problems are totally outside himself, latches onto an easy external enemy (USFS), and feeds his ego with a steady stream of “you were robbed” or “they did you wrong”, or “it’s not on you,” then he won’t learn anything from yesterday. He’ll just repeat the same emotional cycle with a different event attached to it.

For his sake, I hope he just lets the fans stay bitter without succumbing to it because he cannot afford to. Instead, he needs to accept reality of the trajectory of his life, including being left off Beijing. He also needs to now feel the frustration and learn to accept yesterday’s mistakes and own them. It’s ok for him to go over what went wrong, what he could have controlled, what changes he needs to implement, and allow himself to feel his feelings and be comfortable with them. I don’t want fan attitudes to make him run back to where he’ll turn this and maybe future setbacks on the USFS and starts blaming them for what went wrong yesterday and in the future.

He does seems to have strong people around him who can help keep him grounded and accountable. I just hope the online noise doesn’t become a crutch, because that’s how you end up stuck in grievance instead of growth.

Again, the system put Jason & Ilia in the same priority group once Nationals was finished.

Yes, Jason had senior results that Ilia did not, but that is more a result of the 2020 JGP being entirely canceled so Ilia's options were - 2 guaranteed JGP assignments or maybe 1 SkAm host GP & whatever Challenger assignments he could muster up between Covid restrictions & the other US men vying for those assignments. He & his team chose the JGP assignments and he did very well in those.

Ultimately, the USFS placed more value on those senior results than on the junior ones, then completely ignored the Nationals results. There was nothing in the selection criteria that said they'd weigh senior results more heavily than junior ones. Had that been made clear, perhaps Ilia's team would have chosen a SkAm host assignment & 2-3 Challengers instead of the JGP.

There are all sorts of ways to pretzel-logic oneself into believing that placing Jason on the 2022 Olympic team over Ilia was the correct choice. Time has proven it was not.

It’s not pretzel logic, it’s just logic. Being logical does not mean there’s only one correct choice. Ilia or Jason were both reasonable choices. You wanted one choice and they went with another. As for time, who the eff knows? You have no idea what would have happened to Ilia’s life if he went to Beijing. As said above, harping on it only feeds resentment and it’s unproductive. It also feeds the need to say “I told you so” even if the alternative was uncertain.

 

[Vagabond]

@Yazmeen just put the house troll on Ignore. It won't solve every problem in life, but it will help.

 

[Baby Yoda On Skates]

I'm one who does think the decision for the Beijing team should have been different, but at the end of the day, Ilia choked.

And unless the rules change to devalue quads, I don't see Ilia's body holding up another 4 years and I think that's part of the angst. The greatest jumper in a generation will not have Olympic gold to show for it.

 

[clairecloutier]

Relatedly, if the ISU goes through with some version of the radical format changes they’re proposing, Ilia will also likely never again have the opportunity to present a 7-quad long program at the Olympics, even if he’s physically still in a good spot in 2030.

 

[Rukia]

Relatedly, if the ISU goes through with some version of the radical format changes they’re proposing, Ilia will also likely never again have the opportunity to present a 7-quad long program at the Olympics, even if he’s physically still in a good spot in 2030.

Maybe this isn't a bad thing though. Ilia has more to offer than just quads. I think he could thrive in a new way given the chance (and maybe save some wear and tear on his body).

 

[OrioleBeagle]

It might be time for Ilia to leave Virginia and train with Raphael full time in California. I wonder if he has signed to do Dancing With The Stars. Evan Lysacek had signed with them before the Olympics (it was kept quiet until the day they announced all of the celebrity competitors).

 

[Sylvia]

"Ilia Malinin update: He has postponed the huge media day that was planned for him here at the Olympics. He is in the village spending time with his U.S. teammates and other athletes. I’m told the Olympic record for supportive hugs for an athlete might be broken today." https://x.com/cbrennansports/status/2022696928870375449

Priscilla Gilman:

Priscilla Gilman on Instagram: "I am an ardent figure skating fan. I’ve been watching skating since I was five, marveling at Dorothy Hamill & John Curry in the 1976 Olympics. I’ve interviewed skaters like Tai Babilonia & published a piece about the l

452 likes, 17 comments - priscilla.gilman on February 13, 2026: "I am an ardent figure skating fan. I’ve been watching skating since I was five, marveling at Dorothy Hamill & John Curry in the 1976 Olympics. I’ve interviewed skaters like Tai Babilonia & published a piece about the life lessons...

www.instagram.com

OIP's Jordan:

On Ice Perspectives ❄️🎥 on Instagram: "The only true wisdom, is in knowing you know nothing. @ilia_quadg0d_malinin’s 2026 Olympic Free Program, recorded while training at his home rink in August 2025. Last summer, Ilia invited me to his home rink t

75K likes, 1,942 comments - oniceperspectives on February 14, 2026: "The only true wisdom, is in knowing you know nothing. @ilia_quadg0d_malinin’s 2026 Olympic Free Program, recorded while training at his home rink in August 2025. Last summer, Ilia invited me to his home rink to help film the...

www.instagram.com

Lucius Kazanecki was at a watch party in Reston, VA yesterday - WTOP news segment with many supportive comments on camera:

WTOP News on Instagram: "There was screaming, crying and hands covering eyes and mouths at the Winter Olympics watch party hosted by SkateQuest in Reston, Virginia, on Friday. They were all in disbelief as they watched Fairfax-native Ilia Malinin’s

220 likes, 0 comments - wtopnews on February 14, 2026: "There was screaming, crying and hands covering eyes and mouths at the Winter Olympics watch party hosted by SkateQuest in Reston, Virginia, on Friday. They were all in disbelief as they watched Fairfax-native Ilia Malinin’s Olympic dreams...

www.instagram.com

 

[SkateSand]

I think Ilia usually believes he's competing against himself and what he wanted was to achieve a repeat of the seven quads from the GPF on Olympic Ice to cement his place in history. And I think that led to his unraveling when things started to go wrong. Instead of focussing on what he could do to still win, he kept trying to keep with his planned program. He didn't seem to have a Plan B and he needed one. But I hope he realizes that the Olympics may not be the best time to try and break records. I don't think his team participation or not going to Beijing would have made any difference. We'll never know, though.

 

[clairecloutier]

I think Ilia usually believes he's competing against himself and what he wanted was to achieve a repeat of the seven quads from the GPF on Olympic Ice to cement his place in history. And I think that led to his unraveling when things started to go wrong. Instead of focussing on what he could do to still win, he kept trying to keep with his planned program. He didn't seem to have a Plan B and he needed one. But I hope he realizes that the Olympics may not be the best time to try and break records. I don't think his team participation or not going to Beijing would have made any difference. We'll never know, though.

Yes. In the past year, Ilia had frequently mentioned in interviews his "perfect layout" of 7 quads and, ideally, wanting to do that at the Olympics.

 

[kwanfan1818]

I do think that USFS likely would have made a different decision in a non-COVID Olympics. With actual external pressure amplified in an open Olympics, the “young phenom, next in line champion” narrative would have alleviated the increased in-person pressure on Chen and may have proven irresistible.

I do agree that USFS reliance on Brown allowed other US Men to count on spots, but with or without Brown, the rest were fighting for one spot, the second or third. Given the performance of US Men — Torgashev should have wiped the table with Brown, between his quads, skating skills, and musicality, especially at his second Worlds — I don’t see that choosing Malinin in Beijing would have lit a fire under them to retain or regain the extra spot in this quad. Anyone could see that he was going to overtake them all by the next season. In the long-term, for Malinin, it may have been the difference between gold in Milan, although there is no guarantee, especially specifically for the atypical Beijing Olympics. Had Malinin gone to Beijing and skated well, fulfilling the young phenom narrative, that could have inspired a lot of kids, especially since his vibe was so different from Chen’s. If he didn’t fulfill the narrative, then it would have had very little impact on US Men for this quad, IMO. I also think that if Beijing had been unsuccessful because of inconsistency, it wouldn’t have had setback kind of impact to him personally, either.

I think it’s possible that all of the back and forth in Malinin’s head since Nationals between “getting the job done” strategy and wanting to do crush it, in addition to forced pacing, was too much. It is hardly his fault that he was cruising internationally and winning with such great margins, even after he was behind after the SP any more than international judges repeatedly putting Brown in the Top 8 at Worlds with his lower jump content. Skating requires a complete program to music, not discrete runs or elements where you reset and can change strategy between runs, adjusting for course conditions. We give such praise to skaters who can adjust on the fly, and that usually means switching one jump or tacking on a 2T, not a complete program change à la a high Christopher Bowman.

Chen was able to say, SP only for the TE, and whoever does the FS is responsible for themselves. Whether Malinin felt he had the option, I’m not sure, but how many people would have relied on Naumov or Torgashev to pull a Gogolev? Had he not skated the FS, I think media and many fans would have blamed him, not the team effort, and not the man who placed lower than he. I remember when a former OGM-turned-TV commentator blamed Shani Davis’ non-participation in a team relay for the US losing gold, when he wasn’t named to the relay or part of the relay practices. Davis had to waste time and energy responding to it before his next races. Reality didn’t stop the attacks or suppress the false narrative.

 

[Allskate]

The US would have been better off with these guys the past 4 years had they been treated like anything/everything depended on them rather than subconsciously telling them they could fart around & under-deliver every time because Jason would come through.

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?

It might be time for Ilia to leave Virginia and train with Raphael full time in California.

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.

 

[Allskate]

Relatedly, if the ISU goes through with some version of the radical format changes they’re proposing, Ilia will also likely never again have the opportunity to present a 7-quad long program at the Olympics, even if he’s physically still in a good spot in 2030.

Maybe this isn't a bad thing though. Ilia has more to offer than just quads. I think he could thrive in a new way given the chance (and maybe save some wear and tear on his body).

I don't think those new rules will be adopted, but I do think they will reduce the number of jumping passes in the free - which might help him decide not to go for his weakest and riskiest jumps, though I'm not sure he has that in him.

I don't think it's going to happen, but I do hope they go further than that to put more value on non-jump elements and the expressive side of skating. Shaidorov seems like a lovely guy and I'm very happy for Kazakhstan, but I don't enjoy anything about his skating besides his jumps. The judges were quite generous with the PCS scores for him, and working on the rest of his skating won't increase his scores nearly as much as even higher tech content. I think the message all the guys got last night was that they had to land more of their quads if they want to medal or win.

 

[Sylvia]

Maxim’s words of support for Ilia via Access Hollywood today:

Access Hollywood on Instagram: "That's a teammate 🥹 #WinterOlympics"

912 likes, 23 comments - accesshollywood on February 14, 2026: "That's a teammate 🥹 #WinterOlympics".

www.instagram.com