Feb. 14, 2026
Quad God Falls...TWICE; One of the Biggest, Most Shocking, Hard-to-Watch Upsets in Olympic Figure Skating History
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RSS Feed Olympic pressure overwhelmed 21 year old Ilia Malinin and Team USA’s biggest hope for figure skating gold came to a dramatic end on the ice. After winning 14 straight competitions over the past 2 years. Malinin fell twice and didn’t complete two other quad jumps during the most important routine of his career. But it’s what he said immediately after competition, that has so many people talking. ”
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey folks, it is Saturday, February fourteenth, and we have now seen one of the most shocking, the most stunning collapses in Olympic history. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Rooves. It happened on the biggest stage, and it happened to Augur arguably not just the biggest American, but maybe one of the biggest names overall in the Olympics. The quad God.
00:00:30
Speaker 2: H the quad God his actual name Ilia Melanin, but he was the darling of this Olympics. There were a couple names and a couple athletes, a handful who everyone was looking to an at to bring home gold. The pressure cannot be anything short of almost debilitating, and unfortunately that is what it appears happened to name them.
00:00:54
Speaker 1: Who are the big name even if you're not following the Olympics. Lindsay Vaughn, Chloe Kim, Mikayla Schiffrin, Quad God, Now those are the everybody can name that. There are other big stars I'm not taking away from but these are the names that you would ever get close to household in those names, bro the Lindsay Vaughan, Nobody was expecting her to win goal. We've known her for a long time, but we were just impressed by what she was doing. This kid was your Simone Biles. He steps out there, the expectation is he's going.
00:01:25
Speaker 2: To win exactly, and you know, we refer to him as the quad God because it's easy. And his name might be not a household name yet, but the point was that after this Olympics it would be. Obviously in the figure skating community he is a household name. But for a lot of us who are now just kind of getting up to date on the new US Olympic athletes who then become household names, this kid, Iliam Allenan was about to become that person.
00:01:53
Speaker 3: So he was going to be something beyond the quad God.
00:01:55
Speaker 2: He was gonna he had a moniker and he was going to have a household name.
00:02:00
Speaker 1: But he has it now for the wrong reason. You all, this was hard to watch. This wasn't defeat. This was watching someone have a complete meltdown on the most important and the biggest stage possible Robes start to finish. This was a collapse of epic historic proportion. And all you can say, Robes is you got to remember these dudes are human beings.
00:02:29
Speaker 2: Yes, the agony of defeat. They talk about it every Olympics. It occurs. Unfortunately, you don't know who it's going to happen to. But the pressure is something that most of us mere mortals cannot even fathom. With the war, when people say the world is watching, literally the world is watching. And he had just come off of this pretty big high. He was called up and called in to essentially booy up the team event, and he did it. He performed, He did eas exactly what he was supposed to do, what he is known for, and he brought the team Team USA to a gold medal victory.
00:03:08
Speaker 3: So he is coming off that high.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was several days ago. That was the one he wasn't even supposed to.
00:03:12
Speaker 2: Do, and he didn't want to do it because he wanted to focus on his competition. He wanted to be able to concentrate and he didn't want to take away from But you know what then he said, huh hell yeah, I just.
00:03:23
Speaker 3: Brought it home.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: We just won gold. Best decision I ever made. Who knows now, as he reflects back, if that led in any way to what we saw on the ice from him in his performance, in his marquee performance that we were then expecting.
00:03:37
Speaker 3: Yes, this is the moment that he was supposed to win gold.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: We will get into why performing in the team event might have messed with his head a little bit in just a second. But Iliam Malinin performed yesterday. This was the second of two routines that were part of the individual male figure skating gold medal competition. But he is performing in the fine yesterday. He didn't just not win gold, he didn't win a medal at all. He finished eighth in a performance that shocked the Olympics. He fell twice in his jumps, so his butt was on the ice at least two times, and then on another two jumps he just bailed on them. So this is the guy who has seven quad jumps. Four of them were total disasters last night. Didn't complete two and the other he was on his ass. Robes we got were of course, we watched during the day, sometimes certainly early morning because of the time difference. We were out yesterday and we were keeping up and we saw the headline of what happened, and then we came that got settled, teed it up so we could watched the performance. It's devastating.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: It's so hard to watch and to listen to the commentators. I mean, there was just silence for a long time. They didn't know what to say. They were genuinely shocked. They said, this young man, he's twenty one years old, right, Iliam Allen, and he does not do this. He doesn't even fall once, let alone twice. He doesn't not go for his quad jumps. And he did a single I believe, when he was supposed to do a quad, and then he did a double when he was supposed to do a quad. So they were they were stricken, the commentators. There was silence in the ice rink. It was just devastating, and he felt that the energy was just completely shifted. And they said this and we know this if this is just something that this isn't a physical, this wasn't about something he couldn't do.
00:05:45
Speaker 3: This was all in his head. This was completely in total, totally mental.
00:05:49
Speaker 1: And it happens, and it happened in the worst possible time for this kid. We tried, we try to give some perspective to what we were seeing. And I meant to go look at Vegas odds and I didn't see but he would have been the oldwhelming favorites. Yes, but here's the thing, folks, this is a dude who has not lost a competition in two years. In fourteen straight competitions he has come out on top. Among those were two World championships. You all, he has been the best figure skater against these same dudes in the world for two straight years. And also he's the four time US national champion. This dude does not lose. And you know what happened, Robes, when he's finally going to officially be anointed put the crown on his head as you put the gold medal around his neck. Yesterday was the worst performance he has put up the worst score in four years.
00:06:40
Speaker 2: Wow, he's scored two hundred and ninety one point five eight worst score in four years.
00:06:45
Speaker 1: That's mental, Robes.
00:06:46
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Yes, you have not lost a competition in two years. That means he had fourteen straight competitions where he came out on top number one, fourteen in a row. Look, all streaks are eventually broken, but to have it broken at the Olympics when you are skating.
00:07:07
Speaker 3: For gold worst possible scenario.
00:07:10
Speaker 1: Losing is one thing, Underperforming is one thing. This is not what This was, folks. This was a complete meltdown by this kid. And I'm not saying that to be offensive. A heart on him. Our hearts were breaking way even if we knew the result. I said to you as we were watching, I kind of wish we didn't know what was coming, because it made it worse.
00:07:29
Speaker 3: It did.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: We were waiting for you know when you say it's like watching a train accident, Like we knew what was coming, and so I was. I think I was like squinting my eyes. I didn't really want to see. And the pain on his face when he finished and did he hit his head, he was just he was so so devastated, understandably so, but that was just so hard to watch these kids skate their hearts out, the training, the work, all of this leading up to this one performance.
00:07:59
Speaker 1: It's too much. It became too much. Who's in the crowd, Simone Biles, right, that's a big deal. Nathan Chen, former gold medalist for the US is the last Olympics. He's in the crowd. This was the moment. This was who's the darling? You still say the gymnastics Nadia Komenich, No, the one from the US that was on the Whaedi's box that I can't way. Mary Luke red, Yes, he was about to be that darling you cannot get in the Olympics. Right in the Summer Games, whatever woman wins the all around is our darling. Yes, in gymnastics, and then in the Winter Games, the woman who wins the figure skating and the man who wins the figure skates carry those are your big marquee events like one hundred meters dash almost this is it like.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: This, like Michael Thorps, like there are certain people in certain events.
00:08:47
Speaker 1: He was about to be it Robes, this was everything and that was just too much pressure. Now some of his comments, will talk about his performance, will give you the comments about his performance, and then we'll tell you about this hot mike moment. And when we all heard and it was pretty clear immediately, oh he's pissed about something and the anger and emotion was coming out. But roab some of his statements here he seems as clueless as the rest of us as to what happened.
00:09:10
Speaker 2: Yes, here is what he said afterwards after the performance. He said, honestly, I still haven't been able to process what just happened going into this competition. I felt really good this whole day, feeling really solid. I just thought that all I needed to do was trust the process that I've always been doing. You know, it's so true, Like, look, the only small amount of like just a little bit of pressure that we understand. When you are about to run a marathon, you're nervous, you don't know what your body's going to do, you don't know what the weather's going to be like, you don't know what the crowd's going to feel like. But you tell yourself, and this is what everyone tells you. Trust the training. Trust the training. Your body knows what to do. You're going to be okay. Don't let your nerves take over. So it sounded like that's where his headspace was.
00:09:51
Speaker 1: You stay in routine. We've been around a lot of athletes. They do not mess around with their routine. You stay in a certain pattern. I practice this, this time, I eat it this time. This is what I eat, and then this is what I listened to, he said, and explaining I did everything the way I always do it.
00:10:07
Speaker 3: Why would I change anything now exactly?
00:10:09
Speaker 2: He went on to say, but it's not like any other competition. It's the Olympics.
00:10:15
Speaker 1: I respect that.
00:10:16
Speaker 3: I do too. I do too, he said.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: I think people don't realize the pressure and the nerves that actually happened from the inside. So it was really just something that overwhelmed me. And I just felt like I had no control.
00:10:30
Speaker 1: That's honest, you know.
00:10:31
Speaker 2: I think look in small versions of that. I think everyone knows what that feels like. It all of a sudden, you realize people are watching or somehow you just get outside of your head and you start panicking. You start feeling the pressure, you start thinking what if I do something, and your brain just starts to completely spiral.
00:10:46
Speaker 3: And it looks like that's what happened.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: And he's acknowledging that that's what happened. That's you don't often hear that the pressure got to me. It's the Olympics. There's the big stage. You mess with me, You don't hear just that open type of honest statement. I appreciated that.
00:10:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, I felt like, this is what I wanted to do, this is what we planned, this is what we practiced, and really just needed to go out there and do what I always do. That did not happen. And I don't know why. Something felt off and I don't know what it was specifically. I'm still trying to understand what that was. Look he is doing, he is com competing with with Uh, I'm trying it's not tricks. What are they called with his act? Like just his what he does with the pup.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: The only one that does a quad axcelling competition who has landed that thing.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: Well, I was trying to like, they're not They're not called tricks, they're not called feats. Whatever it is, the disciplines there, I'm listening the word of just what it what it is to do a quad. But some of what he does on the ice was considered so dangerous it was not allowed.
00:11:49
Speaker 3: So you think about just.
00:11:50
Speaker 2: Not wanting to fall, or wanting to perform your best or wanted to perform flawlessly, but you're also risking injury. You're risking life and limb with some of these that he's doing. Sometimes he does a flip where he lands on one leg. He does these quads that most people cannot do. So the fear of failure isn't just about not getting a gold, it's about massive injury as well.
00:12:13
Speaker 1: Dum, you put me back into that right mindset of remembering and This is probably the best comparison, and people understand this perspective someone Biles being to start for a long time. It's not that she's outperforming people because they're all doing the same tricks and she does them better. She's doing shit nobody else can do. He is that guy in ice skating. He is doing things and that's why his level of difficulty is so far ahead, and he's so far ahead of competition. Nobody else is even attempting the things he's doing, like some more Biles. She was the one that made the comment twisting around doing all that. She said, I'll never do that on ice. She recognizes how crazy it is what they're doing.
00:12:54
Speaker 2: And you bring up some Biles. Let's just remember she got what she referred to as the twist.
00:13:00
Speaker 3: You said twists.
00:13:01
Speaker 2: She had a very similar situation mentally when she was performing and she.
00:13:09
Speaker 3: Had to take a step back.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: See I had never heard I wasn't that familiar with the twists. Of course she was in the gymnastics world. You knew there's better than I did. She at that point, what was that twenty twenty right? She had? How decorated of an olympian? Was she at that point? We never looked at Simone Biles and thought, man, this pressure, she can't handle it. We never looked at her we learned, oh wow, there is a thing that happens that your mind and your body get out of right harmony and you could absolutely do all kinds of damage to yourself in gymnastics. Yes, do they consider I don't think so. Do they consider that a mental block in where the pressure's getting to you? I heard that or thought that is something that a fluke freak thing that happens that can happen if you are in your gym training, can happen in the Olympics, It can happen at a small regional meet.
00:14:00
Speaker 2: Ye.
00:14:00
Speaker 1: How does is that considered like a mental The pressure is getting to you?
00:14:03
Speaker 2: Absolutely because what happened, like the point being, is what they are doing.
00:14:06
Speaker 3: It isn't about winning or losing.
00:14:08
Speaker 2: It's about if I mess up, I could be paralyzed for the rest of my life.
00:14:11
Speaker 3: I could die.
00:14:12
Speaker 2: I mean literally that sounds dramatic, but the types of moves these athletes are making is absolutely dangerous. And this is why they have the scores they have because they're getting points no one else is getting because no one has the guts to even attempt some of these moves. So that is I feel like Simone Biles is a really good example of what Ilian was going through and what she went through and talked about and had to actually go and get help to get her head straight before she could come back. I mean, Jordan Childs won the gold because Simone Biles had to take a step back.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: Look this kid, man, he he's got away four years. He's got a wait four years for another shot like this. But stay with us here, folks. There was a moment that everyone has been talking about. It happened almost immediately after he competition. It was clear he was emotional, but some of that emotion was anger at his own US team will explain the hot mic moments to hear all right, continuing here on this Saturday, February fourteenth, going over what will be talked about for years and years and years, the absolute breakdown by one of the biggest stars at the Olympics, Ilia malinin the quad God failed to even metal. Was widely considered the overwhelming favorite to take the gold and maybe even easily, but fell twice on the ice in his final routine, didn't complete a couple of other jumps and just had a melt down. But robes right after right, you see pain, you see agony. As soon as he finished, I think he put his hands in his head and his face in his hands. But he goes and sits down, waiting on his score. He's talking and he got mad, like it was emotion and a little anger. But he started talking about the US team and started talking about Beijing. And for a lot of people who had been following or wondering what the hell he's talking about, there's some context here.
00:16:14
Speaker 3: Yes, he's this is what he said.
00:16:15
Speaker 2: I don't He obviously did not realize that the cameras were there and that this was going to be heard by everyone. But he said, I told them to send me to Beijing, and then I wouldn't have skated like that.
00:16:26
Speaker 3: They all think it's easy.
00:16:27
Speaker 1: It's not easy, and so you wonder what is he I said. Immediately we turned to like, oh, he's mad about something. In that moment, he just had the worst moment of his professional career. He got mad and went back another four years to Beijing. I didn't realize he was seventeen at the time, finished second at the US Nationals. That's good enough to make the Olympic team. The federation made the decision, Yeah, you got second at Nationals and that's good enough, but we're going to take these other two more experienced skaters to the Olympics who finish behind you. So he gets dumped after performing well enough to make the Olympic team. Those other two guys did not get medals, by the way, we should mention. But rodes his mind in that moment was I didn't know about Olympic pressure. If you all let me go get an experience and be under Nathan Chen and watch him in that whole thing, maybe I could have meddled, But I also would have gotten the experience necessary to nail this moment. And he was pissed at them for that decision. In that moment.
00:17:36
Speaker 2: Well, look, I think there are a couple of things at play, and I understand where his head went and where his heart was because the moment that happens, you want to blame something, You want to blame someone, You want to say they did this. It's not my fault is it is a human experience and reaction to try and blame someone else.
00:17:55
Speaker 3: That is what your ego does to protect yourself.
00:17:57
Speaker 2: From a devastating moment you say it's your fault, it's not mine. However, he does have a good point, because imagine if he had gone at seventeen with the skill set he has, without the pressure of being called the quad god.
00:18:11
Speaker 3: He's the guy who's going to bring the gold.
00:18:13
Speaker 2: If you're underneath someone like Nathan Chen, you can actually go to the Olympics, get the experience, but not feel all the pressure at your very first damn Olympics when you're still just twenty one years old, maybe even at seventeen. Look, gymnasts go early, because when you're younger, you might not even realize as much, really truly the danger you're putting your body.
00:18:32
Speaker 3: In, but you might not even recognize the pressure as much.
00:18:34
Speaker 2: The older you get, the more you realize how fragile your body is, how fragile life is, how finicky or fickle fandom, stardom is. Like all of that, it starts to weigh on you in a way that maybe you wouldn't have even considered when you're younger.
00:18:48
Speaker 3: So I do think he makes a good point.
00:18:50
Speaker 2: But it was so interesting to see what the human mind does in a moment of desperation and despair and devastation. You want to blame someone else, Think.
00:19:00
Speaker 1: Hey, in the moments after that was a meeting. I mean that was a minute I think after he finished that horrible routine. But with perspective, and he'll calm down, he'll settle down, he might even come out and apologize. And by the way, he was very gracious to the winners. So he was a good sportsman in all this. But rot he I think he said later on about it. He said, yeah, but if I had gone to the Olympics, who knows what my journey would have been and where my life would have gone and whatever else. All these things just happen like this. He can't. Obviously, it's not Team USA's fault for not picking him all those years ago. It's just they made the best decision they could make at the time that they thought would put them in a position to get a gold, silver, bronze medal in twenty twenty two. Let's make sure we don't put ourselves in a best position now, so we can put ourselves in the best position four years from now, so we can have this kid's head right. And that I don't know, but Bro's he knows. With perspective, it's not their fault that this happened. Now, I gotta be with he got second, put him on the damn team like.
00:20:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think he did too, and that would like it should be who's the best, not who you think might perform better.
00:20:09
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I know they take all this into consideration.
00:20:11
Speaker 2: I will also say this, I'm sure this doesn't feel great because, yes, the Olympics. It's not like in any other sport where you can say, oh, my next game, I'll do better, or next season, I'll do better. Nat you gotta wait, and I know there are other competitions and all of that, but you have to wait four more years for another shot at the Olympics. And yes, he'll only be twenty five. Yes he should be able to perhaps even be better than he is now. However, you could have injuries, you could have issues. There's all sorts of things that can happen between now and four years from now, and that has to be a daunting feeling to know I don't get to try again at this stage, at this level for another four years.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: Imagine that pressure and seeing him skate in four years and what's going to be on him the last thing, we'll mention here, Robes, And we said it at the time. It seems like it was several days. I think it was earlier this week the team competition. Ilia was not going to be with his team for the team competition. They called him now up the night before, Robes, because the things were so tight in scores. They say, hey, we are not going to win this thing unless you compete. He decides to compete. Scores well, team USA gets gold. We said at the time, Robes, whatever happens in the individual, this has got to be the most valuable gold medal to him, even if he gets the individual. Like what he did to come save his team. Here's the problem, Robes. In that competition, as well as he did, a Japanese skater scored higher than he did. Now, he did good enough to put his team over the top, but he had in his head there is another skater out here who actually just beat me in the team competition, even though my team won. They talked about how he's looking around now and that set him up for oh shit, somebody's on my heels in a mindset that maybe he would not have had going into the individual. Who knows, but that was a he got outperformed. Somebody beat him already score wise, and.
00:22:18
Speaker 2: You can understand how that would mess with your head. If you've been told you're the best in the world, you're the two time reigning world champion, you're the quad god. Nobody can come close to you, and all of a sudden someone beats your score and now you go into that competition knowing you're going head to head with that person that scater.
00:22:34
Speaker 1: I overlooked it because I didn't think about that either, celebrating Hey, he helped them win. He knew better he was. He had a look on his face and we're like, wait, you just saved your team. Why are you looking at one? Oh? Yeah, he knew what was coming.
00:22:48
Speaker 3: I didn't.
00:22:48
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that at all. But now that makes a lot of sense.
00:22:52
Speaker 1: We are rooting for this kid harder than you will ever believe. Now, worlds, he's gonna get up off that ice, literally and figuratively, and really he's gonna be okay because he's too talented not to be. But he's young.
00:23:05
Speaker 3: He's young, twenty one, he's a baby.
00:23:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, what test did you fail? At twenty one? And he did this in front of everybody, This is nothing short of a failure, and that's okay, and that's what life is. And sometimes they're on bigger stages and this was the absolute biggest yes.
00:23:20
Speaker 3: And as we know, when you live enough life.
00:23:22
Speaker 2: I don't know what it's like to be an Olympian, obviously, but I do know that it is through those times when you fail and you fall and you have to pick yourself back up, that is when you become a better human and hopefully even a better athlete and certainly a better teammate.
00:23:36
Speaker 3: You just get this perspective.
00:23:37
Speaker 2: If you're always winning, and he has been somebody who has always won, sometimes you have to lose. Sometimes you have to fall to find out what you're really made of. And with that, everyone, we appreciate you as always listening to us. Hope you're watching the Olympics like we are, but will of course be following all the major headlines for you. Thank you, Hope you have a wonderful Saturday today. I'm Amy Robach alongside t. J. Holmes, and we will talk to you very soon
Speaker 1: Hey folks, it is Saturday, February fourteenth, and we have now seen one of the most shocking, the most stunning collapses in Olympic history. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Rooves. It happened on the biggest stage, and it happened to Augur arguably not just the biggest American, but maybe one of the biggest names overall in the Olympics. The quad God.
00:00:30
Speaker 2: H the quad God his actual name Ilia Melanin, but he was the darling of this Olympics. There were a couple names and a couple athletes, a handful who everyone was looking to an at to bring home gold. The pressure cannot be anything short of almost debilitating, and unfortunately that is what it appears happened to name them.
00:00:54
Speaker 1: Who are the big name even if you're not following the Olympics. Lindsay Vaughn, Chloe Kim, Mikayla Schiffrin, Quad God, Now those are the everybody can name that. There are other big stars I'm not taking away from but these are the names that you would ever get close to household in those names, bro the Lindsay Vaughan, Nobody was expecting her to win goal. We've known her for a long time, but we were just impressed by what she was doing. This kid was your Simone Biles. He steps out there, the expectation is he's going.
00:01:25
Speaker 2: To win exactly, and you know, we refer to him as the quad God because it's easy. And his name might be not a household name yet, but the point was that after this Olympics it would be. Obviously in the figure skating community he is a household name. But for a lot of us who are now just kind of getting up to date on the new US Olympic athletes who then become household names, this kid, Iliam Allenan was about to become that person.
00:01:53
Speaker 3: So he was going to be something beyond the quad God.
00:01:55
Speaker 2: He was gonna he had a moniker and he was going to have a household name.
00:02:00
Speaker 1: But he has it now for the wrong reason. You all, this was hard to watch. This wasn't defeat. This was watching someone have a complete meltdown on the most important and the biggest stage possible Robes start to finish. This was a collapse of epic historic proportion. And all you can say, Robes is you got to remember these dudes are human beings.
00:02:29
Speaker 2: Yes, the agony of defeat. They talk about it every Olympics. It occurs. Unfortunately, you don't know who it's going to happen to. But the pressure is something that most of us mere mortals cannot even fathom. With the war, when people say the world is watching, literally the world is watching. And he had just come off of this pretty big high. He was called up and called in to essentially booy up the team event, and he did it. He performed, He did eas exactly what he was supposed to do, what he is known for, and he brought the team Team USA to a gold medal victory.
00:03:08
Speaker 3: So he is coming off that high.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was several days ago. That was the one he wasn't even supposed to.
00:03:12
Speaker 2: Do, and he didn't want to do it because he wanted to focus on his competition. He wanted to be able to concentrate and he didn't want to take away from But you know what then he said, huh hell yeah, I just.
00:03:23
Speaker 3: Brought it home.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: We just won gold. Best decision I ever made. Who knows now, as he reflects back, if that led in any way to what we saw on the ice from him in his performance, in his marquee performance that we were then expecting.
00:03:37
Speaker 3: Yes, this is the moment that he was supposed to win gold.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: We will get into why performing in the team event might have messed with his head a little bit in just a second. But Iliam Malinin performed yesterday. This was the second of two routines that were part of the individual male figure skating gold medal competition. But he is performing in the fine yesterday. He didn't just not win gold, he didn't win a medal at all. He finished eighth in a performance that shocked the Olympics. He fell twice in his jumps, so his butt was on the ice at least two times, and then on another two jumps he just bailed on them. So this is the guy who has seven quad jumps. Four of them were total disasters last night. Didn't complete two and the other he was on his ass. Robes we got were of course, we watched during the day, sometimes certainly early morning because of the time difference. We were out yesterday and we were keeping up and we saw the headline of what happened, and then we came that got settled, teed it up so we could watched the performance. It's devastating.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: It's so hard to watch and to listen to the commentators. I mean, there was just silence for a long time. They didn't know what to say. They were genuinely shocked. They said, this young man, he's twenty one years old, right, Iliam Allen, and he does not do this. He doesn't even fall once, let alone twice. He doesn't not go for his quad jumps. And he did a single I believe, when he was supposed to do a quad, and then he did a double when he was supposed to do a quad. So they were they were stricken, the commentators. There was silence in the ice rink. It was just devastating, and he felt that the energy was just completely shifted. And they said this and we know this if this is just something that this isn't a physical, this wasn't about something he couldn't do.
00:05:45
Speaker 3: This was all in his head. This was completely in total, totally mental.
00:05:49
Speaker 1: And it happens, and it happened in the worst possible time for this kid. We tried, we try to give some perspective to what we were seeing. And I meant to go look at Vegas odds and I didn't see but he would have been the oldwhelming favorites. Yes, but here's the thing, folks, this is a dude who has not lost a competition in two years. In fourteen straight competitions he has come out on top. Among those were two World championships. You all, he has been the best figure skater against these same dudes in the world for two straight years. And also he's the four time US national champion. This dude does not lose. And you know what happened, Robes, when he's finally going to officially be anointed put the crown on his head as you put the gold medal around his neck. Yesterday was the worst performance he has put up the worst score in four years.
00:06:40
Speaker 2: Wow, he's scored two hundred and ninety one point five eight worst score in four years.
00:06:45
Speaker 1: That's mental, Robes.
00:06:46
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Yes, you have not lost a competition in two years. That means he had fourteen straight competitions where he came out on top number one, fourteen in a row. Look, all streaks are eventually broken, but to have it broken at the Olympics when you are skating.
00:07:07
Speaker 3: For gold worst possible scenario.
00:07:10
Speaker 1: Losing is one thing, Underperforming is one thing. This is not what This was, folks. This was a complete meltdown by this kid. And I'm not saying that to be offensive. A heart on him. Our hearts were breaking way even if we knew the result. I said to you as we were watching, I kind of wish we didn't know what was coming, because it made it worse.
00:07:29
Speaker 3: It did.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: We were waiting for you know when you say it's like watching a train accident, Like we knew what was coming, and so I was. I think I was like squinting my eyes. I didn't really want to see. And the pain on his face when he finished and did he hit his head, he was just he was so so devastated, understandably so, but that was just so hard to watch these kids skate their hearts out, the training, the work, all of this leading up to this one performance.
00:07:59
Speaker 1: It's too much. It became too much. Who's in the crowd, Simone Biles, right, that's a big deal. Nathan Chen, former gold medalist for the US is the last Olympics. He's in the crowd. This was the moment. This was who's the darling? You still say the gymnastics Nadia Komenich, No, the one from the US that was on the Whaedi's box that I can't way. Mary Luke red, Yes, he was about to be that darling you cannot get in the Olympics. Right in the Summer Games, whatever woman wins the all around is our darling. Yes, in gymnastics, and then in the Winter Games, the woman who wins the figure skating and the man who wins the figure skates carry those are your big marquee events like one hundred meters dash almost this is it like.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: This, like Michael Thorps, like there are certain people in certain events.
00:08:47
Speaker 1: He was about to be it Robes, this was everything and that was just too much pressure. Now some of his comments, will talk about his performance, will give you the comments about his performance, and then we'll tell you about this hot mike moment. And when we all heard and it was pretty clear immediately, oh he's pissed about something and the anger and emotion was coming out. But roab some of his statements here he seems as clueless as the rest of us as to what happened.
00:09:10
Speaker 2: Yes, here is what he said afterwards after the performance. He said, honestly, I still haven't been able to process what just happened going into this competition. I felt really good this whole day, feeling really solid. I just thought that all I needed to do was trust the process that I've always been doing. You know, it's so true, Like, look, the only small amount of like just a little bit of pressure that we understand. When you are about to run a marathon, you're nervous, you don't know what your body's going to do, you don't know what the weather's going to be like, you don't know what the crowd's going to feel like. But you tell yourself, and this is what everyone tells you. Trust the training. Trust the training. Your body knows what to do. You're going to be okay. Don't let your nerves take over. So it sounded like that's where his headspace was.
00:09:51
Speaker 1: You stay in routine. We've been around a lot of athletes. They do not mess around with their routine. You stay in a certain pattern. I practice this, this time, I eat it this time. This is what I eat, and then this is what I listened to, he said, and explaining I did everything the way I always do it.
00:10:07
Speaker 3: Why would I change anything now exactly?
00:10:09
Speaker 2: He went on to say, but it's not like any other competition. It's the Olympics.
00:10:15
Speaker 1: I respect that.
00:10:16
Speaker 3: I do too. I do too, he said.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: I think people don't realize the pressure and the nerves that actually happened from the inside. So it was really just something that overwhelmed me. And I just felt like I had no control.
00:10:30
Speaker 1: That's honest, you know.
00:10:31
Speaker 2: I think look in small versions of that. I think everyone knows what that feels like. It all of a sudden, you realize people are watching or somehow you just get outside of your head and you start panicking. You start feeling the pressure, you start thinking what if I do something, and your brain just starts to completely spiral.
00:10:46
Speaker 3: And it looks like that's what happened.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: And he's acknowledging that that's what happened. That's you don't often hear that the pressure got to me. It's the Olympics. There's the big stage. You mess with me, You don't hear just that open type of honest statement. I appreciated that.
00:10:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, I felt like, this is what I wanted to do, this is what we planned, this is what we practiced, and really just needed to go out there and do what I always do. That did not happen. And I don't know why. Something felt off and I don't know what it was specifically. I'm still trying to understand what that was. Look he is doing, he is com competing with with Uh, I'm trying it's not tricks. What are they called with his act? Like just his what he does with the pup.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: The only one that does a quad axcelling competition who has landed that thing.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: Well, I was trying to like, they're not They're not called tricks, they're not called feats. Whatever it is, the disciplines there, I'm listening the word of just what it what it is to do a quad. But some of what he does on the ice was considered so dangerous it was not allowed.
00:11:49
Speaker 3: So you think about just.
00:11:50
Speaker 2: Not wanting to fall, or wanting to perform your best or wanted to perform flawlessly, but you're also risking injury. You're risking life and limb with some of these that he's doing. Sometimes he does a flip where he lands on one leg. He does these quads that most people cannot do. So the fear of failure isn't just about not getting a gold, it's about massive injury as well.
00:12:13
Speaker 1: Dum, you put me back into that right mindset of remembering and This is probably the best comparison, and people understand this perspective someone Biles being to start for a long time. It's not that she's outperforming people because they're all doing the same tricks and she does them better. She's doing shit nobody else can do. He is that guy in ice skating. He is doing things and that's why his level of difficulty is so far ahead, and he's so far ahead of competition. Nobody else is even attempting the things he's doing, like some more Biles. She was the one that made the comment twisting around doing all that. She said, I'll never do that on ice. She recognizes how crazy it is what they're doing.
00:12:54
Speaker 2: And you bring up some Biles. Let's just remember she got what she referred to as the twist.
00:13:00
Speaker 3: You said twists.
00:13:01
Speaker 2: She had a very similar situation mentally when she was performing and she.
00:13:09
Speaker 3: Had to take a step back.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: See I had never heard I wasn't that familiar with the twists. Of course she was in the gymnastics world. You knew there's better than I did. She at that point, what was that twenty twenty right? She had? How decorated of an olympian? Was she at that point? We never looked at Simone Biles and thought, man, this pressure, she can't handle it. We never looked at her we learned, oh wow, there is a thing that happens that your mind and your body get out of right harmony and you could absolutely do all kinds of damage to yourself in gymnastics. Yes, do they consider I don't think so. Do they consider that a mental block in where the pressure's getting to you? I heard that or thought that is something that a fluke freak thing that happens that can happen if you are in your gym training, can happen in the Olympics, It can happen at a small regional meet.
00:14:00
Speaker 2: Ye.
00:14:00
Speaker 1: How does is that considered like a mental The pressure is getting to you?
00:14:03
Speaker 2: Absolutely because what happened, like the point being, is what they are doing.
00:14:06
Speaker 3: It isn't about winning or losing.
00:14:08
Speaker 2: It's about if I mess up, I could be paralyzed for the rest of my life.
00:14:11
Speaker 3: I could die.
00:14:12
Speaker 2: I mean literally that sounds dramatic, but the types of moves these athletes are making is absolutely dangerous. And this is why they have the scores they have because they're getting points no one else is getting because no one has the guts to even attempt some of these moves. So that is I feel like Simone Biles is a really good example of what Ilian was going through and what she went through and talked about and had to actually go and get help to get her head straight before she could come back. I mean, Jordan Childs won the gold because Simone Biles had to take a step back.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: Look this kid, man, he he's got away four years. He's got a wait four years for another shot like this. But stay with us here, folks. There was a moment that everyone has been talking about. It happened almost immediately after he competition. It was clear he was emotional, but some of that emotion was anger at his own US team will explain the hot mic moments to hear all right, continuing here on this Saturday, February fourteenth, going over what will be talked about for years and years and years, the absolute breakdown by one of the biggest stars at the Olympics, Ilia malinin the quad God failed to even metal. Was widely considered the overwhelming favorite to take the gold and maybe even easily, but fell twice on the ice in his final routine, didn't complete a couple of other jumps and just had a melt down. But robes right after right, you see pain, you see agony. As soon as he finished, I think he put his hands in his head and his face in his hands. But he goes and sits down, waiting on his score. He's talking and he got mad, like it was emotion and a little anger. But he started talking about the US team and started talking about Beijing. And for a lot of people who had been following or wondering what the hell he's talking about, there's some context here.
00:16:14
Speaker 3: Yes, he's this is what he said.
00:16:15
Speaker 2: I don't He obviously did not realize that the cameras were there and that this was going to be heard by everyone. But he said, I told them to send me to Beijing, and then I wouldn't have skated like that.
00:16:26
Speaker 3: They all think it's easy.
00:16:27
Speaker 1: It's not easy, and so you wonder what is he I said. Immediately we turned to like, oh, he's mad about something. In that moment, he just had the worst moment of his professional career. He got mad and went back another four years to Beijing. I didn't realize he was seventeen at the time, finished second at the US Nationals. That's good enough to make the Olympic team. The federation made the decision, Yeah, you got second at Nationals and that's good enough, but we're going to take these other two more experienced skaters to the Olympics who finish behind you. So he gets dumped after performing well enough to make the Olympic team. Those other two guys did not get medals, by the way, we should mention. But rodes his mind in that moment was I didn't know about Olympic pressure. If you all let me go get an experience and be under Nathan Chen and watch him in that whole thing, maybe I could have meddled, But I also would have gotten the experience necessary to nail this moment. And he was pissed at them for that decision. In that moment.
00:17:36
Speaker 2: Well, look, I think there are a couple of things at play, and I understand where his head went and where his heart was because the moment that happens, you want to blame something, You want to blame someone, You want to say they did this. It's not my fault is it is a human experience and reaction to try and blame someone else.
00:17:55
Speaker 3: That is what your ego does to protect yourself.
00:17:57
Speaker 2: From a devastating moment you say it's your fault, it's not mine. However, he does have a good point, because imagine if he had gone at seventeen with the skill set he has, without the pressure of being called the quad god.
00:18:11
Speaker 3: He's the guy who's going to bring the gold.
00:18:13
Speaker 2: If you're underneath someone like Nathan Chen, you can actually go to the Olympics, get the experience, but not feel all the pressure at your very first damn Olympics when you're still just twenty one years old, maybe even at seventeen. Look, gymnasts go early, because when you're younger, you might not even realize as much, really truly the danger you're putting your body.
00:18:32
Speaker 3: In, but you might not even recognize the pressure as much.
00:18:34
Speaker 2: The older you get, the more you realize how fragile your body is, how fragile life is, how finicky or fickle fandom, stardom is. Like all of that, it starts to weigh on you in a way that maybe you wouldn't have even considered when you're younger.
00:18:48
Speaker 3: So I do think he makes a good point.
00:18:50
Speaker 2: But it was so interesting to see what the human mind does in a moment of desperation and despair and devastation. You want to blame someone else, Think.
00:19:00
Speaker 1: Hey, in the moments after that was a meeting. I mean that was a minute I think after he finished that horrible routine. But with perspective, and he'll calm down, he'll settle down, he might even come out and apologize. And by the way, he was very gracious to the winners. So he was a good sportsman in all this. But rot he I think he said later on about it. He said, yeah, but if I had gone to the Olympics, who knows what my journey would have been and where my life would have gone and whatever else. All these things just happen like this. He can't. Obviously, it's not Team USA's fault for not picking him all those years ago. It's just they made the best decision they could make at the time that they thought would put them in a position to get a gold, silver, bronze medal in twenty twenty two. Let's make sure we don't put ourselves in a best position now, so we can put ourselves in the best position four years from now, so we can have this kid's head right. And that I don't know, but Bro's he knows. With perspective, it's not their fault that this happened. Now, I gotta be with he got second, put him on the damn team like.
00:20:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think he did too, and that would like it should be who's the best, not who you think might perform better.
00:20:09
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I know they take all this into consideration.
00:20:11
Speaker 2: I will also say this, I'm sure this doesn't feel great because, yes, the Olympics. It's not like in any other sport where you can say, oh, my next game, I'll do better, or next season, I'll do better. Nat you gotta wait, and I know there are other competitions and all of that, but you have to wait four more years for another shot at the Olympics. And yes, he'll only be twenty five. Yes he should be able to perhaps even be better than he is now. However, you could have injuries, you could have issues. There's all sorts of things that can happen between now and four years from now, and that has to be a daunting feeling to know I don't get to try again at this stage, at this level for another four years.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: Imagine that pressure and seeing him skate in four years and what's going to be on him the last thing, we'll mention here, Robes, And we said it at the time. It seems like it was several days. I think it was earlier this week the team competition. Ilia was not going to be with his team for the team competition. They called him now up the night before, Robes, because the things were so tight in scores. They say, hey, we are not going to win this thing unless you compete. He decides to compete. Scores well, team USA gets gold. We said at the time, Robes, whatever happens in the individual, this has got to be the most valuable gold medal to him, even if he gets the individual. Like what he did to come save his team. Here's the problem, Robes. In that competition, as well as he did, a Japanese skater scored higher than he did. Now, he did good enough to put his team over the top, but he had in his head there is another skater out here who actually just beat me in the team competition, even though my team won. They talked about how he's looking around now and that set him up for oh shit, somebody's on my heels in a mindset that maybe he would not have had going into the individual. Who knows, but that was a he got outperformed. Somebody beat him already score wise, and.
00:22:18
Speaker 2: You can understand how that would mess with your head. If you've been told you're the best in the world, you're the two time reigning world champion, you're the quad god. Nobody can come close to you, and all of a sudden someone beats your score and now you go into that competition knowing you're going head to head with that person that scater.
00:22:34
Speaker 1: I overlooked it because I didn't think about that either, celebrating Hey, he helped them win. He knew better he was. He had a look on his face and we're like, wait, you just saved your team. Why are you looking at one? Oh? Yeah, he knew what was coming.
00:22:48
Speaker 3: I didn't.
00:22:48
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that at all. But now that makes a lot of sense.
00:22:52
Speaker 1: We are rooting for this kid harder than you will ever believe. Now, worlds, he's gonna get up off that ice, literally and figuratively, and really he's gonna be okay because he's too talented not to be. But he's young.
00:23:05
Speaker 3: He's young, twenty one, he's a baby.
00:23:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, what test did you fail? At twenty one? And he did this in front of everybody, This is nothing short of a failure, and that's okay, and that's what life is. And sometimes they're on bigger stages and this was the absolute biggest yes.
00:23:20
Speaker 3: And as we know, when you live enough life.
00:23:22
Speaker 2: I don't know what it's like to be an Olympian, obviously, but I do know that it is through those times when you fail and you fall and you have to pick yourself back up, that is when you become a better human and hopefully even a better athlete and certainly a better teammate.
00:23:36
Speaker 3: You just get this perspective.
00:23:37
Speaker 2: If you're always winning, and he has been somebody who has always won, sometimes you have to lose. Sometimes you have to fall to find out what you're really made of. And with that, everyone, we appreciate you as always listening to us. Hope you're watching the Olympics like we are, but will of course be following all the major headlines for you. Thank you, Hope you have a wonderful Saturday today. I'm Amy Robach alongside t. J. Holmes, and we will talk to you very soon