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ST. LOUIS, MO – JANUARY 08: Ilia Malinin of Washington FSC competes in the mens short program during the Prevagen U.S. Figure skating, Eiskunstlauf Championships on Jan. 08, 2026, at Enterprise Center, in St. Louis, MO. Photo by Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire FIGURE SKATING: JAN 08 U.S. Figure Skating Championships EDITORIAL USE ONLY Icon26010897
Imago
ST. LOUIS, MO – JANUARY 08: Ilia Malinin of Washington FSC competes in the mens short program during the Prevagen U.S. Figure skating, Eiskunstlauf Championships on Jan. 08, 2026, at Enterprise Center, in St. Louis, MO. Photo by Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire FIGURE SKATING: JAN 08 U.S. Figure Skating Championships EDITORIAL USE ONLY Icon26010897
One slip on the Olympic stage changed everything for Ilia Malinin. Just last September, Olympic silver medalist Evgenia Medvedeva couldn’t stop praising him, calling him “the brightest contender for Olympic gold.” She believed that if he skated flawlessly, he would win by a great margin. But her words for Ilia this time have a noticeable shift. So what changed in between?
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Nicknamed “Quad God,” Malinin fell twice during the Olympic free skate and failed to land his famous “quadruple,” which cost him an individual medal in Milan Cortina 2 months back. While Malinin has now bounced back with a third consecutive Worlds title at the 2026 Prague World Figure Skating Championships and is looking at his Worlds victory as redemption, Olympic silver medalist Evgenia Medvedeva doesn’t feel so and she’s calling a spade a spade.
When asked, “Let’s talk about Ilia Malinin. Did he make up for the Olympics at Worlds?” Medvedeva answered it bluntly.
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“How can you make up for the Olympics? Can I ask a question?” Medvedeva said in an interview on YouTube. “No, there’s no way to make up for the Olympics. He just won another World Championship, that’s all.”
There are parts of the figure skating world that agree with the retired Russian figure skater, because there is no making up for a poor Olympics. That is especially given the fact that Ilia Malinin entered the 2026 Winter Olympics as the bona fide favorite for the gold medal. The American had, after all, won fourteen straight competitions leading up to Milano Cortina, including two consecutive World Championship gold medals.
He outpaced the field by nearly 23 points and now stands just one short of the record shared by Hayes Jenkins (1953-56) and Scott Hamilton (1981-84).
Evgenia Medvedeva on Ilia Malinin’s World Championship win on Katok YouTube show :
“Q: Let’s talk about Ilia Malinin. Did he make up for the Olympics at Worlds?
Medvedeva: How can you make up for the Olympics? Can I ask a question?
No, there’s no way to make up for the… pic.twitter.com/5TUdzkaqiH
— FS Gossips (@fs_gossips) April 10, 2026
However, while Malinin won gold during the team event for Team USA, he struggled in the men’s individual event, falling twice as an error-laden performance saw him finish eighth. Instead, Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov won his country’s first Olympic gold in figure skating, outdoing Ilia Malinin by some distance by the end of the competition. Still, Ilia spoke about how he came to terms with it.
“Coming back from there was just really hard,” Ilia Malinin said last month, as per NBC. “A few days, I kept thinking about it, 24/7, and (of) so many different things that I could have done differently to give a different outcome.”
“But in the end, this outcome is what happened, and I had to move on. In a different universe I would have won the Olympics and maybe decided not to do the World Championships. But here I am.”
Yet, the 21-year-old who turned up at worlds wasn’t the same one from the Olympics, but despite that, he himself echoed what Evgenia Medvedeva said.
Ilia Malinin echoes what Evgenia Medvedeva said about the Olympics
That is despite the 21-year-old showing off his best as he registered a personal best score in the short program of 111.29, more than nine points ahead of his nearest competitor. It gave Malinin a big enough lead that he could perform his best at the free skate, but few expected what he would do next, especially given that the Olympics were still a recent memory. And yet, that didn’t seem to matter.
Because Ilia Malinin did it all, performing a dazzling free skate that stunned onlookers. And it was the performance many expected from him at the Olympics as he produced five quadruple jumps, no falls or stumbles to seal his third consecutive World Championship gold. That matches Nathan Chen’s record and puts him one shy of the consecutive record held by Hayes Jenkins and Scott Hamilton.
And it’s a run that’s turning heads all across the world, especially as Michelle Kwan’s five gold medals between 1996 and 2003 are the gold standard for American figure skaters. And at the moment, Ilia Malinin’s pace means that he’s not far behind, even if he played down the redemption arc.
“They are two different things,” Malinin told USA Today when asked if his performances make up for the Olympics. “It’s good that I was able to end the season on a good note and I’m proud of that, but also they’re two completely different competitions in the end, so I think the real redemption will be in 2030 (the next Winter Olympics).”
However, despite playing down his redemption, Malinin does believe that his ability to deal with pressure and expectations has changed thanks to the 2026 Winter Olympics.
“Absolutely, that is something that I’ve changed, that I definitely will embrace for the next few years,” Malinin added. “I definitely know that I’ve done so much for the sport and now I feel like I officially have earned what I believe I’ve achieved for the sport, and now all I’ll do is just enjoy myself and use that as leverage for making the sport bigger and better.”
For now, Ilia Malinin leaves the season with another world title and a point to prove rather than a clean redemption story. With the 2030 Olympics still ahead, both his supporters and critics will be watching closely to see which version of him shows up when it matters most.
Written by
Edited by
Firdows Matheen