Rafael Arutyunyan: “Ilia is not to blame, and I have already told him this. The fault lies with us, the adults, who failed to protect a young athlete from making wrong decisions.”
Rafael Arutyunyan commented on Ilia Malinin’s underwhelming performance at the 2026 Winter Olympics, where Malinin fell in the free skate and finished eighth in the individual event. The gold medal went to Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov.
original source: RT
Coach Rafael Arutyunyan defended Ilia Malinin after his disappointing 8th-place finish at the 2026 Olympics, taking responsibility for the team’s failure to support the young skater adequately under pressure. Here’s a translation of his comments.
“We, the members of Malinin’s team, need to stop accepting condolences and openly acknowledge the mistakes that were made. Ilia is not to blame, and I have already told him this. The fault lies with us, the adults, who failed to protect a young athlete from making wrong decisions.
For various reasons, I don’t think it appropriate to provide more extensive comments on this matter. However, in a personal conversation with Ilia, we discussed many important things for him. I hope this will help him continue his career in the sport and find joy again in what he does,” said Arutyunyan.
Related topics: Ilia Malinin, Olympic Games, Rafael Arutyunyan
Ilia should have practiced with the other skaters and not “off site”.Hes over protected and over confident.Anything can happen in figure skating .Kevyn Amos has had skates like that and deals with it .He didn’t even make the cut at Europeans after the SP and came back to handle the Olympic pressure and was great.Ilia is not invincible and was totally unprepared for that reality
Ugh, too bad he didn’t think of this in time to help Ilia. He had every reason to know what could happen.
THANK YOU
FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT