Winter Olympics 2026
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
His arrogance served him as an athlete, until today. |
Anonymous
DP. My Russian friends are all saying that as well. I was actually curious if this is true. I enjoyed his skating but idk much about figure skating and whether he was as judged unfairly (seems likely since Russia is the bad guy now). |
Anonymous
Did he have braces on? So adorable |
Anonymous
The look on his face was if complete and utter shock, maybe even a bad shock. It was like someone just died, sorry if that’s an inappropriate comparison. |
Anonymous
I'm not a Russia sympathizer, but if the international community decides to let them compete in the Olympics, they should give them a fair shot in the spirit of the Games. His technical score was top-notch, but they severely downgraded him in the subjective component score. I don't follow at all because I thought it was a lovely freeskate. I thought he was first or second in the freeskate. He also learned he had a copyright issue with his short program 72 hours before he was set to compete, and had to create an entirely new program. Maybe that was nothing, but it felt a little like the IOC trying to sabotage him, or at least it had the appearance of foul play. I thought he was probably underscored in the short and was absolutely underscored in the long program. |
Anonymous
His technicals were just so plain smooth. It was a beautiful watch. Deserved it all. I was so excited and hyped up about Ilia too. He is young, he will be back. |
Anonymous
This music rights thing is going to be a huge PITA for figure skating. |
Anonymous
The artist specifically pulled copyright clearance from him because he's Russian, 3 days before the short program. He wanted to use his last year's program, Dune, but also couldn't get that cleared. One of Gummenik's coaches is legendary Russian pairs figure skating coach Tamara Moskvina. At 84 years old, she had the brilliant idea to use AI to compose music similar to this year's short program, with the same accents where the jumps should be and everything. But Gummenik tried it out and didn't feel right about it. He's also a musician (did a gala performance to Bolero where he stops skating in the middle and accompanies himself on piano, hah) and didn't want to skate to artificial music, so he ended up finding a waltz from the same composer of his long program music. He had to prepare that in a day. And then because he has been banned from skating internationally the last four years, he had no world ranking, and automatically had to skate first in the short, and it's common knowledge judges hold back marks from skaters in early groups/lesser knowns. And with all that going against him, he still ended up 3 points out of the medals! Pretty impressive. |
Anonymous
It’s not everyday at the Olympics when you hear a Canadian Olympian tell a Swedish Olympian to f**k off in the middle of a match. |
Anonymous
Same! It reminded me a little of Lillehammer, when the favored veterans all stumbled (Browning, Boitano, and Petrenko) and Alexei Urmanov pulled off a stunning upset. The planets had to align just right. |
Anonymous
+1 Olympic athletes must have some level of confidence to keep them going — it’s what makes them Olympians. It’s unfortunate that nerves got to Ilia, but it also happened to the other top contenders. It just happens. I don’t fault him for having confidence. |
Anonymous
+2 It happens to many others, not getting the expected result, i.e. I heard Nathan Chen was in the audience. Lots of people seemed to live a charmed life, until something derails their plans. To the rest of us, these people can seem arrogant. But maybe they are just ignorant. Something forgivable in a 21 yo. Now going forward is the time for him to show what he is made of. |
Anonymous
And Alexei Urmanov is Mikhail Shaidorov‘s coach. He trains with him in Sochi. |
Anonymous
|
I thought Ilia handled everything really well. the comment he made about Beijing - that was just him processing how severely the Olympic atmosphere had rattled him, and realizing it could have been much different. He was basically in shock at that moment.
He can come back from this but I really don’t like how we center a few Olympic “stars” and put massive pressure on them. Nathan, Ilya, Simone, etc - we give them an impossible situation where anything less than perfect is a disappointment. Figure skating and gymnastics are particularly rough and then athletes are very young. Ilia has a gold medal and is still the best at his sport. But I also think other skaters were more artistic and graceful in their presentation. Maybe he can use this experience to develop his artistic side and rely less on technical tricks. |
Anonymous
Not a political post, but as someone who loves figure skating, the Russian influence on the sport was everywhere at the 2026 men's Olympic event, even with the ban. So many in men's singles had Russian roots or training: Mikhail Shaidorov (Kazakhstan – 1st) – Trainsin Russia with Alexei Urmanov in Sochi and speaks Russian. Stephen Gogolev (Canada – 5th) – Has dual Canadian and Russian citizenship, started skating in Russia as a kid before moving to Canada. Petr Gumennik (Russia – 6th) – Russian competing as a neutral athlete. Ilia Malinin (USA – 8th) – His parents Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov were Olympic figure skaters from Uzbekistan/former Soviet Union. Andrew Torgashev (USA – 12th) – Parents were Russian figure skaters who toured with ice shows before settling in the US. Maxim Naumov (USA – 20th) – His parents Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were the 1994 World Champions in pairs for Russia. Vladimir Samoylov (Poland – competed) – Born in Moscow, trained in the Russian system before switching to Poland. I know many of these skaters have left Russia or represent other countries, but the technical foundation and coaching tradition of Russian figure skating still clearly influences the sport. Also, even if Adeliia Petrosian lands a quad and triple axel in the women's event, will she podium, or will the judges give her a low enough component score to keep her out of the top 3? Her actual skating is much more entertaining than Kaori Sakamoto (I think she's so boring, personally, and prefer the other Japanese women to her). |