Peak moment on Olympic Day 7: Ilia Marin suffers historic meltdown
USA TODAY Sports’ Samantha Cardona Norberg and Jordan Mendoza break down Ilia Marin’s shocking long program that dropped him to eighth overall in the men’s free skate.
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MILAN — Ilia Marin ended her long program not in victory but in tears. In one of the most shocking and destructive performances by a potential champion in Olympic figure skating history, the runner who was expected to win the gold medal in the men’s figure skating event finished in eighth place.
Yes, it’s number 8.
Quad God was 8th.
Marinin’s meltdown was so bad that near the end of the program, when he made a mistake, his father, who was also his coach, turned away from the board near the ice and buried his head in his hands.
If you’ve ever wondered how intense the pressure of the Olympics is, you now know it. Marin, 21, entered the men’s final with a solid five-point lead. He looked invincible. Then the other skaters closest to him started making all kinds of mistakes and could not skate well. This was a great gift to Marin. All he had to do was land a few patented quadruple jumps and the Olympic gold medal was his.
But he couldn’t do it. Early in his long program, he did a quad axel in the air, followed by two quad loops, and fell not once but twice on his other jumps.
“The pressure of the Olympics really bothers me,” Marinin said afterwards, calmly and perfectly answering all the questions. “The pressure is unreal. It was like I didn’t realize where I was in the program. Usually I have more time and I get a better feel for what it’s like, but this time everything happened so quickly that I really didn’t have time to make changes or change that process.”
The skater who most controlled the sport over the past four years was lost on the ice.
“Going into the free program, I was really confident. I just felt really good, and it was like it was right there and then it just slipped out of my hands,” he said.
Marinin was so relaxed as she entered the final group of skaters for the long program that she teasingly pretended to do a backflip and wagged her finger at the audience as if to say, “Not yet!” as she walked out to warm up. Who would do that when marching towards the most stressful moment of their life? There is no one but Marinin.
But then he encountered a long wait between five other skaters who were right behind him in the standings, taking a total of 40 minutes. Something happened when he came out for a long program. His face looked nervous. His bravado disappeared. He seemed worried and nervous.
When mistakes started happening, he couldn’t stop them.
“My life has been through a lot of ups and downs, and right before I entered the starting pose, I felt all of those experiences, memories, and thoughts really come flooding back. And it felt really overwhelming. In that moment, I didn’t really know what to do with it,” he said.
Mullin, who is fun and cheeky but always has a mischievous grin on his face, has been preparing for this moment for years, winning the last four U.S. titles and the last two world championships. He hadn’t lost a competition since 2023. I welcomed and even accepted the increasing pressure along the way. It was all part of his dream.
Until that dream turned into a nightmare.
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