Reddit wonders if bad ice was to blame for Ilia Malinin's nightmare at Olympics originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Ilia Malinin had one of the worst figure skating days of his life on Friday in the men's individual final at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
He attributed it to mental struggles, and that's fair. But there was also a weird quirk to the final group on the ice.
Mikhail Shaidorov won the gold medal for Kazakhstan, and he avoided the trouble. But pretty much everyone else who was in medal contention fell during their routines.
Of course, they're doing the most difficult programs, so that's a lot of what it can be attributed to. There's a lot of pressure with medals on the line, and once rhythm gets thrown off in a routine, it gets even tougher.
There are some wondering if the ice was in worse shape than it should've been.
One commentor on Reddit wrote:
"Genuinely what happened??? Most seeds fell and I’m not an ice skating expert but in tennis if most players slip during a tournament then it’s definitely a problem with the surface."
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Another pushed back:
"Good enough for Mikhail from Kazhakstan... maybe it was just nerves plus a slightly below average ice quality."
And here's one with a bit more in-depth analysis:
"Went early enough after half time resurfacing that the ice was still in better condition, was clearly falling apart pretty rapidly though, you could tell skaters were checking the ice after routines. Adam's foot got caught doing a basic crossover, you had people losing all momentum fast skating around especially coming down after jumps where they basically just instantly lost all momentum. You could tell something was very wrong when Ilya of all people was bailing out of every move as soon as he left the ground."
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Malinin won't blame something like that, of course.
But it was a disappointing ending for some of the best skaters in the world.
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