Chicago Cubs pitcher Shota Imanaga sat in the dugout with his head in his hand after the final out of the National League Division Series in Milwaukee.
Imanaga had blown a three-run first-inning lead while losing Game 2 of the series and was so shaky that manager Craig Counsell opted to go with a bullpen game in the win-or-else Game 5, a 3-1 Cubs loss.
“I felt like I didn’t have enough skills there,” Imanaga said afterward of Counsell’s decision, speaking through his interpreter. “Hopefully I want to (improve) my skills so I have the trust (of Counsell) to throw not necessarily short innings but give us long innings.”
The pressure of performing on the big stage can be overwhelming, but being on that stage is what every athlete dreams about.
I thought of Imanaga over the weekend after watching Olympic figure skater Ilia Malinin falter with a gold medal on the line, falling twice during his free skate performance and falling from first to eighth overall.
Figure skating is not something I normally pay attention to, but Malinin came into the Olympics with so much hype, I was curious to see what made the so-called “Quad God” so godlike.
He seemed to be in every other commercial on the NBC broadcasts, and the network analysts gushed over him. Malinin even had a taped segment with Snoop Dogg, who watched his practice performance and held up 10 fingers, saying: “Perfect 10. And if I had five more hands I’d be holding them up too.”
With the Snoop Dogg seal of approval, Malinin was obviously on track to be the breakout star of the Olympics. But that didn’t happen, as we all know now. After his poor performance in the free skate, he covered his face with his gloved hands as he skated off and later told NBC’s Andrea Joyce in the postskate interview: “I blew it.”
It’s hard to watch someone see their dreams crash so hard in front of millions of viewers. But it’s something every sports fan sees multiple times every year. Whether it’s the Super Bowl, the World Series, the WNBA Finals or any other big event, some athletes come through in the clutch and some falter.
The Olympics are no different. They’re like two weeks of athletes performing in a Game 7 atmosphere. But because they’re held only once every four years, the ones who fail have a long, hard wait to get back to the spotlight, if they even make it back at all.
Former Chicago Tribune colleague Philip Hersh, a veteran figure skating expert writing for Olympics.com, asked a simple question in his column on the performance: “How do you comprehend what was likely the most thorough unraveling of an unquestionably great skater in Olympic history?”
Hersh answered with one possible theory.
“Maybe there was, in fact, too much hubris in declaring himself the ‘Quad God’ four years ago, when he had yet to win any major event,” he wrote. “Maybe the Olympian gods stored that defiance away, waiting — as in a classic Greek tragedy — to strike him down until he was on their turf. Or ice.”
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the men’s figure skating short program at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in Milan. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
I don’t know enough about Greek tragedies or Malinin’s personality to know if that was the case. But I’ve covered enough playoff games in various sports to know well that the greats don’t always come through in the biggest moments, which is why the term “unsung hero” is part of our sports vernacular.
Los Angeles Dodgers great Clayton Kershaw had a 4.62 ERA in 41 postseason games. Former Cubs ace Jon Lester had a 2.51 ERA in 26 postseason appearances. Some athletes just handle the pressure better than others.
“The nerves just went, so overwhelming,” Malinin said afterward. “And especially going into that starting pose, I just felt like all the traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding my head. So many negative thoughts that flooded into there and I could not handle it.”
Being a product of his generation, the 21-year-old Malinin naturally took to Instagram on Monday to elaborate on his feelings to his 1 million followers. A video of him celebrating during past triumphs was interspersed with black-and-white shots of him burying his head in his hands in defeat. It was the modern version of the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” montage that opened ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” back in the day, albeit with new-age music and without Jim McKay’s narration.
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“On the world’s biggest stage, those who appear the strongest may still be fighting invisible battles on the inside,” Malinin wrote. “Even your happiest memories can end up tainted by the noise. Vile online hatred attacks the mind and fear lures it into the darkness, no matter how hard you try to stay sane through the endless insurmountable pressure. It all builds up as these moments flash before your eyes, resulting in an inevitable crash. This is that version of the story.”
A graphic ended the video stating: “Coming February 21, 2026.”
That’s the date of a figure skating exhibition gala scheduled for the end of the Olympics, so we’ll have to wait a few days to see how this story continues.
Dealing with online hatred, sadly, is an obstacle many athletes face. It’s easy to say don’t look at it, but we’re all addicted to our phones.
Fortunately for Malinin, a few thousand followers praised him in the Instagram post for his sportsmanship and for being open about his mental health issues. And he still has a gold medal for the team event, which should help him overcome the darkness in due time.
A couple of weeks ago he was basically an unknown outside of figure skating fans. Now he’s famous worldwide with millions of fans, even though he lost in dramatic fashion after a buildup of Olympic proportions.
Hopefully he’ll get another shot in the French Alps Winter Games in 2030, and maybe it will make his journey that much sweeter. Malinin is not the first great athlete to spectacularly implode in his biggest moment, just the latest in a long line of them. If he recovers, he can turn his loss into something positive in the long run.
As Casey Stengel once said: “Without losers, where would the winners be?”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/17/olympics-ilia-malinin-falter-big-stage/
