PHOTO COURTESY OF WESH.COM

Photo shows Ilia Malinin of Team United States take a fall while competing in the men’s single skating in the Winter Olympics 2026.

As a figure skater, I’ve spent months counting down to the Olympics. I consider Olympic skating my “Super Bowl.” So when looking at coverage of the 2026 men’s free skate, I expected to see something a little different.

Particularly, the one thing that most fans would expect: a clear mention of the champion.

Instead, I found that many of the top headlines for this event didn’t even include the gold medalist. Instead, they focused on Ilia Malinin and his Olympic loss. 

It took scrolling to the very bottom of Google to find any mention of the actual winner. “Mikhail Sharidov stuns for Olympic figure skating title as Ilia Malinin struggles to eighth place” was featured on the Olympic website itself.

So why is it so difficult to find a single source that mentions the gold medalist without starring the athlete who lost?

This actually isn’t new. The same thing happened during the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Athlete Anna Shcherbakova won gold, but Alexandra Trusova’s silver raked in the attention.

Trusova’s tears toward earning silver, despite being a multiple-time European and World Championship medalist, went viral.

“Everyone has a medal, everyone has, but I don’t,” Trusova said during the broadcast.

Meanwhile, the Olympic champion stayed invisible to the public, much like what happened after the 2026 Olympic men’s free skate.

I believe this pattern says less about the losses themselves and more about who the losers are.

Both Malinin and Trusova are known for being technically ahead in their field. 

As for Malinin, he’s the first and only figure skater to complete the quad axel, and recently threw the famous backflip originally performed by Surya Bonaly. 

It was a move that had been illegal in competition for years, with officials only lifting the ban in 2024. But still, the move does not earn any points. It’s a very high risk, with absolutely zero reward.

Yet, Malinin keeps doing it, having included the flip in every one of his Olympic performances thus far.

Skaters like Malinin and Trusova, who compete in highly difficult elements like the quad axel, or in Trusova’s case, the lutz, draw in a massive non-skating platform.

Many of their viewers watch clips instead of performances. They see the illegal element or the historic routine, and are easily amazed. 

I’ve been a part of this camp before, but when the athlete known for winning doesn’t win, it shifts the narrative.

Only a few days before Malinin’s Olympic loss, social media was full of fans defending his free skate for Team USA. During the skate, Malinin fell yet received zero deductions, helping Team USA secure gold.

Fans argued that Malinin should just be congratulated as a winner, instead of fighting over who really deserved the win. And I completely agree with this sentiment.

However, after Malinin’s loss, the conversation flipped. Suddenly, the competition is rigged.

Everyone came to Malinin’s defense, but I kept asking myself, what about when we were dead-set on letting the winner enjoy their victory?

As viewers, we claim to love competition, but when our favorites aren’t at the top of the podium, suddenly the story becomes robbery. We’re willing to accept anything but acceptance. That’s just hard to watch.

The truth of the matter is that this loss isn’t a scandal. 

Malinin didn’t win; in fact, he fell and underrotated on his elements. Every single skater had to compete across the same ice.

Whether Olympic scoring is perfect is a valid question, but I believe we’re misdirecting our frustrations when we try to turn athletes into victims instead of losers.

From where I stand, as someone who truly loves this sport, we need to decide what we care about most. Is it the skating itself, or the storylines we want to see?

Because right now, the story is getting in the way of the sport.

Categories: Opinion