Ilia Malinin was the destined one to stand atop that Olympic podium in the men’s figure skating free skate. However, the Quad God collapsed to eighth place in the competition and left many fans surprised with his performance. With his over two-year winning streak broken, his disappointing showing prompted a well-known American journalist to point out a few problems at the Milan Olympics.

Stuart Brazell took to Instagram to voice a suspicion that had been quietly circulating in the Milano MSK-Competition Rink. In a post analyzing Malinin’s defeat, she posed a question in her social media video’s comment section, stating, “Am I the only one who saw like 4 other skaters catch an edge in that exact same corner? ⛸️🤨 It feels like the ice conditions at the Milano-Cortina arena completely robbed Ilia Malinin of his gold medal moment. This doesn’t even feel real.”

The question of ice quality at this year’s Winter Olympics is not new, nor is it confined to the figure skating discipline. Just days before Ilia Malinin’s free skate, short-track speed skaters raised alarms about the surface they share with figure skating.

2025 1000m World Champion Steven Dubois called the ice “really bad” and stated, “There were so many falls … it’s probably the worst ice of the year we’ve had. At the Games it’s always hard. They have to manage with the ice, the figure skating and the short-track. It’s really not the same ice that we like. We have different opinions about it.”

And Malinin? He also brought attention to the Olympic ice, stating, “Maybe the ice was also not the best condition for what I would like to have. That’s something I cannot complain about, because we’re all put in that situation where we have to skate no matter what happens.” While the 21-year-old didn’t put the entire blame on the venue, the evening’s competition showcased other figure skaters struggling, too.

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Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, who would ultimately claim silver, appeared to fight through his own program, including a fall on a quadruple flip. “I don’t feel any sense of relief at all. I made mistakes, and I feel tremendous frustration about that,” he said.

However, following the medal disaster, Malinin called out the federation.

Ilia Malinin was frustrated at the Milan Olympics

264.49 was Ilia Malinin’s total score, which was just a little bit more than ten points behind the podium dream. And the crowd watched him rush towards his coaches right after his performance, and say, “They would have sent me to Beijing four years ago, then I wouldn’t have skated like that. It’s done.”

He was frustrated with himself and with a decision that was taken four years ago that barred him from taking any Olympic experience from the Beijing Games. Indeed, Malinin wasn’t selected for the U.S. team in that edition.

Talking about his performance, the 21-year-old said, “Honestly, I was not expecting that. I felt like going into this competition, I just felt ready getting on that ice, but I think maybe that might have been the reason. Maybe I was too confident that I was gonna go well. I can’t process what just happened.”

The jumping mistakes that Malinin committed made him lose 72 points, which could’ve easily made him a contender for the gold medal. “I think it was definitely mental. Now, finally experiencing that Olympic atmosphere, it’s crazy. It’s not like any other competition,” he said, acknowledging the pressure at the Games.

He added, “I blew it. That’s honestly the first thing that came to my mind: ‘there’s no way that just happened’. I was preparing the whole season, you know. I felt so confident with my program, so confident with everything. And just to go out and that happened was… I have no words, honestly.”

Not only him, but the entire country was surprised by what went down at the Milano MSK-Competition Rink. And there hasn’t been any official word on the issues related to the ice at the venue.