Simone Biles knew what Ilia Malinin was going through at the Olympics and she was sitting in the stands watching it unfold.
But as the shocking performance shocked the world and the crowd in the arena, there was only one thing going through Biles’ mind.
“I’ve been through that firsthand and so I really went into protection mode,” she told Olympics.com Tuesday.
Biles, who went through her own Olympic challenges after getting the twisties in the 2020 Tokyo Games and is in Milan to advocate for athlete mental health, said she immediately feared for what would come next for Malinin.
“When you’re expected to skate a performance of your lifetime and you don’t deliver, I worry how that affects his mental and how the world is going to view that,” Biles said.
Malinin told NBC that speaking to someone who knew what he was experiencing felt validating.
“Yeah, she’s been through a pretty similar path, and it’s something that I’m so grateful for again. I mean hearing it from Simone Biles, you can’t, you know, I can’t fathom that,” he said. “You can’t just go up to a random person and say, you know, I’ve talked to Simone Biles. That’s a crazy whole other level. And the fact that she came up to me and talked about what she’s gone through and she was even watching me compete. So even then I was so blown away and I feel like that gives me, I give a really big impact on the world. It honestly just gives me love – why I love the sport and why I love to do what I do.”
Biles wasn’t the only one to send a message of support to Malinin after the skate.
Speaking to TODAY on Monday, U.S. teammate Maxim Naumov, who made Olympic headlines of his own with emotional performances and tributes to his late parents, said he saw Malinin in the Olympic Village after his skate.
“I really just want him to know that we love him and we care about him. His performance and what he did on the ice that day in the free program, it doesn’t define him. In those moments, it’s how you respond. And knowing him, I know he’s going to be OK,” Naumov said. “But we’re all behind him, the entire skating community. The love and support that we have for him is regardless of anything that he does on the ice, as a human. So, I really hope that he feels that and we’ve got his back, no matter what.”
Malinin, who helped the U.S. clinch the team gold medal early in the Winter Games, was the heavy favorite to add another gold in the individual event. But he fell twice and struggled throughout his free skate on Friday, ending up off the podium entirely and finishing in eighth.
“I can’t process what just happened,” Malinin said just moments after the uncharacteristic skate.
Malinin hinted in a somewhat cryptic social media post Monday that there’s more to what happened in his Olympic journey that many may not have seen — and that “version of the story” will come out this week.
Malinin posted a video on social media Monday juxtaposing images of his many triumphs with a black-and-white image of the U.S. figure skater with his head buried in his hands, and a caption hinting at an “inevitable crash.”
“This is that version of the story,” he wrote. “Coming February 21, 2026.”
Feb. 21 is also the day Malinin is expected to skate in the traditional exhibition gala to wrap up the Olympic figure skating program.
The pressure of being the gold-medal favorite wasn’t lost on Malinin throughout the Games, but he noted the power of pushing through.
“It’s very unpleasant feeling and it’s like if you feel really heavy on the inside, that’s something that I really felt going into even my first day at the Olympics and slowly over time it just built up more and more and more as it just really just got to me,” he said. “I think I can say that proudly, for anything in life, is no matter what hits you, no matter how hard you fall, you still in the end have to get up and keep going because that’s who you are as a person and of course, for us, we get up and we have to keep skating because that’s our career and that’s our job.”
And Malinin is already looking to get up from this fall — using it as fuel for 2030.
“It’s going to be why I’m going to continue to skate and just really try to just embrace everything I’ve done and really just go out there and enjoy another Olympic Games,” he told NBC.
Malinin, who helped the U.S. clinch the team gold medal early in the Winter Games, was the heavy favorite to add another gold in the individual event. But he fell twice and struggled throughout his free skate on Friday, ending up off the podium entirely and finishing in eighth.
“I can’t process what just happened,” Malinin said just moments after the uncharacteristic skate that resulted in one of the biggest surprises of the 2026 Winter Olympics.
He acknowledged afterward that the pressure of the Olympics had worn him down, saying: “I didn’t really know how to handle it.”
Malinin alluded again to the weight he felt while competing in Milan in the caption to his social media video.
Hence then, the article about what simone biles told ilia malinin after his shocking skate at the winter olympics was published today ( ) and is available on NBC Chicago ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( What Simone Biles told Ilia Malinin after his shocking skate at the Winter Olympics )
Also on site :