The China Mail - Where did it all go wrong for 'Quad God' Malinin?

Shellshocked, the 21-year-old known as the 'Quad God' for his ability to land every four-rotation jump including the complex quad-axel left the rink with his head in his hands on Friday.

Not only had the gold gone, he missed the podium altogether, finishing eighth.

Taking to the ice at Milano Ice Skating Arena with a comfortable five-point lead after the short programme section, Malinin endured a nightmare four-minute free skate in which he fell twice and lacked the breathtaking speed which had made him unbeatable for over two years.

He scored just 156.33 in the free skate to place 15th with 264.49 in total -- over 27 points behind Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov who took gold.

The completely unfancied Shaidorov kept his nerve as his rivals tumbled, moving up from fifth to take his country's first figure skating gold, with Japan's Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato completing the podium.

"The pressure of the Olympics really gets you... it's unreal," an emotional Malinin told journalists afterwards.

"People say that there's an Olympic curse, that the Olympic gold medal favourite is always going to skate bad.

"It's almost like I wasn't aware of where I was in the programme. I'm still proud of being able to get to the finish."

Malinin had promised to hit his signature move, the quad axel, a difficult four-and-a-half rotation jump that has never been landed at the Olympics.

But early in his routine, he only performed a single axel instead of the quad axel, and it threw him off. It wasn't long before he fell, and then again, to the gasps of the crowd.

He did perform his trademark backflip toward the end, but the showman move drew far fewer technical points.

Sportingly, Malinin congratulated his rivals.

Shaidorov said: "When I was watching Ilia skating I was surprised because usually he's exceptional and I don't know what exactly happened."

"It's really difficult, there's this pressure from people who assume that he would probably get gold," added Kagiyama.

- 'Too much to handle' -

It was the fourth night on the ice in Milan for Malinin who had helped the Americans win team gold.

He had been second after the team short programme behind Kagiyama and had errors in the free skate. But he had led the individual short programme and was confident of finishing the job.

"Coming into the free programme, I was really confident, just really feeling good about it -- and then it's like it's right there, and it just left your hands," said Malinin.

"I'm trying to understand what happened specifically.

"My life has been through a lot of ups and downs, and just before getting into my starting pose, I just felt all of those experiences, memories, thoughts really just rush in, and it just felt so overwhelming. I didn't really know how to handle it in that moment.

"So I think all of this pressure, all of the media and just being the Olympic gold hopeful was just a lot, too much to handle."

American skater Nathan Chen, the Beijing men's individual gold medallist, was dumbfounded, saying: "What a shock".

"I think he really had this medal almost handed to him on a platter.

"But something happened tonight, and truthfully, I can't even express what it might be."

Chen pointed to his own Olympic experience as favourite at Pyeongchang 2018 and "with a lot of pressure, a lot of concerns in my head, a lot of doubt" he finished fifth.

"When I watched him set up... he took a deep breath, and he prepped, and he kind of smiled a little bit, and I was like, 'Okay, he's got this. This is his night'.

"He went to do his quad axel and singled that, and you could see that after that, every single element, he started holding back a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more, and by the end of it, just was not his night."

Chen added: "Ilia is young... still hungry, has so much potential, and certainly someone that we'll continue talking about for the next many Olympic cycles."

R.Yeung--ThChM