“The tremendous stress ruined his entire program. I believe the team event drained all his energy!” Tatiana Tarasova on Malinin’s performance
Tatiana Tarasova expressed her opinion on how participating in the team event affected American figure skater Ilia Malinin’s performance at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
original source: Sport Express
Tatiana Tarasova believes the team event impacted American figure skater Ilia Malinin’s disappointing performance in the men’s singles at the 2026 Olympics. Here’s a translation of her comments.
Malinin faltered in his free skate and finished in 8th place overall, while Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov claimed the gold medal. Earlier, Malinin had won gold in the team event at the Olympics.
“I had no doubt that Malinin would finish first. For two years prior, he had won every competition, leaving no room for anyone to challenge him.
But he made mistakes in his jumps. The tremendous stress ruined his entire program. I believe the team event drained all his energy! In my opinion, the team event should take place after the individual competitions. Malinin wasn’t preparing for a team battle, and it took everything out of him.” Tarasova said.
Related topics: Ilia Malinin, Olympic Games, Tatiana Tarasova
I totally agree with Mrs. Tarasova. It’s not the first time we saw a star figure skater had a disaster performance during his/her individual competition at the Olympics. Julia Lipnitskya, Nathan Chen, Kamila Valieva and Ilia Malinin all had the same problem to handle pressure from media/public attention after shining in the team event.