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\t\t<\/p>\n Ilia Malinin<\/strong><\/a> was caught on a hot mic on Friday (February 13) at the 2026 Olympics<\/em><\/strong> when he shockingly fell twice<\/a> during his ice skating performance, landing him in 8th place.<\/p>\n Leading up to the event, the 21-year-old Team USA figure skater was thought to be the gold medal front runner.<\/p>\n After falling, Ilia <\/strong>was heard on a hot mic while waiting for his scores.<\/p>\n Keep reading to find out more\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n He apparently said while waiting to see if he\u2019d medal, \u201cBeijing, I would not have skated like that,\u201d he could be heard saying. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview (via the Athletic<\/a>), he elaborated more on his thoughts about what he said on the hot mic: \u201cI think if I went to \u201922, then I would have had more experience and know how to handle this Olympic environment. But also I don\u2019t know what the next stages of my life would look like if I went there. So now all I can do is just regroup from this and really just take in the information that happened and just figure out how to manage in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Four years ago, Ilia<\/strong>, when he was only 17 years old, surprisingly landed a silver medal at the U.S. Championships, but U.S. Figure Skating opted to send Vincent Zhou<\/strong> and Jason Brown<\/strong> to the 2022 Olympics instead.<\/p>\n See what Ilia <\/strong>said in his first statements after losing out on a medal.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n