It turns out the Quad God is human after all.
American Ilia Malinin, who bears that nickname thanks to his quad-axel proficiency, entered the Winter Olympics as the prohibitive favourite in men’s figure skating.
But a disastrous free skate, including two falls, saw him finish all the way down in eighth.
Now, Malinin appears set to reveal some background of how it all happened.
“On the world’s biggest stage, those who appear the strongest may still be fighting invisible battles on the inside. Even your happiest memories can end up tainted by the noise,” he wrote in an Instagram post.
“Vile online hatred attacks the mind and fear lures it into the darkness, no matter how hard you try to stay sane through the endless insurmountable pressure. It all builds up as these moments flash before your eyes, resulting in an inevitable crash. This is that version of the story.”
The post teases an apparent video set to come out on Saturday.
In addition to his two falls, Malinin also made multiple other mistakes to fall from the podium, leaving the arena in Italy stunned.
“Honestly, I still haven’t been able to process what just happened,” Malinin said after the competition ended. “I mean, going into this competition, I felt really good this whole day. Feeling really solid. I just thought that all I needed to do was trust the process that I’ve always been doing.
“But it’s not like any other competition. It’s the Olympics,” he added, “and I think people (don’t) realize the pressure and the nerves that actually happen from the inside. So it was really just something that overwhelmed me and I just felt like just I had no control.”
Malinin, 21, finished with 264.49 points, his worst total score in nearly four years, and one that ended a two-plus year unbeaten streak covering 14 full competitions.
–with files from The Associated Press