American figure skating athlete Ilia Malinin fell twice in her final race Friday night and finished eighth in the final event of the competition.
The 21-year-old sensation, who arrived in Italy as the hot favorite for gold in the sport, had an unfortunate accident as he became “overwhelmed with negative emotions” when he fell during the quadruple Lutz, preventing him from completing the triple toe loop that followed.
The two-time world champion, who nicknamed himself “Quad God” as a teenager, held a five-point lead heading into the final race of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Malinin fell for a second time near the end of his performance while attempting a quad salchow-triple Axel combination. He was visibly shaken by his “worst” performance so far.
The American sensation finished 15th out of 24 competitors in the segment with a score of 156.33 in the free skate.
Malinin said: “I ruined everything. Honestly, that was the first thing that came to mind. I just felt like all the traumatic moments in my life were starting to flood my head.”
He continued, “I couldn’t handle it when too many negative thoughts were flooding my mind,” adding, “It was definitely something I didn’t expect. I can’t go back and change it, even though I would love to.”
Kazakh Mikhail Shaidorov won the gold medal while Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato won silver and bronze respectively.
