Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too! He was so shocked - he had no expectation of winning gold!

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.

And Alexei Urmanov is Mikhail Shaidorov‘s coach. He trains with him in Sochi.

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).

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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too! He was so shocked - he had no expectation of winning gold!

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.

And Alexei Urmanov is Mikhail Shaidorov‘s coach. He trains with him in Sochi.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pride goes before a fall.

Yes, please dispense your DCUM advice on how to be a graceful loser by sh*tposting on an anonymous messageboard.

+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.

+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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pride goes before a fall.

Yes, please dispense your DCUM advice on how to be a graceful loser by sh*tposting on an anonymous messageboard.

+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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too! He was so shocked - he had no expectation of winning gold!

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 wrote:why so much curling on tv this year? was so enjoying the women's skeleton just minutes ago! argh!

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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too. But I also think Petr Gumennik was massively underserved. His jumps were solid, and his skating/artistry was better than Shaidorov's. I didn't think we'd be fair to the Russian athletes. I would've had him in second in the long.

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).

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.

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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too. But I also think Petr Gumennik was massively underserved. His jumps were solid, and his skating/artistry was better than Shaidorov's. I didn't think we'd be fair to the Russian athletes. I would've had him in second in the long.

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).

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.

This music rights thing is going to be a huge PITA for figure skating.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too! He was so shocked - he had no expectation of winning gold!

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.

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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too. But I also think Petr Gumennik was massively underserved. His jumps were solid, and his skating/artistry was better than Shaidorov's. I didn't think we'd be fair to the Russian athletes. I would've had him in second in the long.

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).

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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too! He was so shocked - he had no expectation of winning gold!

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 wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Did he have braces on? So adorable

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm happy for the kid from Kazakhstan though!

Me too. But I also think Petr Gumennik was massively underserved. His jumps were solid, and his skating/artistry was better than Shaidorov's. I didn't think we'd be fair to the Russian athletes. I would've had him in second in the long.

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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ilia’s arrogance did him in.

Wasn't he heard saying after his performance waiting for his results that only if they had let him go to Beijing in 2022, he would be on that podium?

Yes, you heard right.

And as he is local, let’s just say that my reference to his arrogance is from direct knowledge of who he is.

New poster.
One doesn’t need deep insight to notice that he is unfortunately full of himself, which is not the end of the world for a 21 yo but I am surprised his parents don’t keep him in check.
He invented his own nickname, put it on a t shirt and wears it. He skates to his own inspirational quotes.
It’s normal for a young person to feel that their thoughts and feelings are more significant and novel than they are, but there needs to be an adult to tell them it’s ridiculous.

His arrogance served him as an athlete, until today.