This is crazy!" Why the World Can't Stop Talking About Malinin's Shocking Gala Finale скачать в хорошем качестве

This is crazy!" Why the World Can't Stop Talking About Malinin's Shocking Gala Finale

Just eight days after finishing eighth at the Olympic singles event — a result widely seen as a competitive collapse — Ilia Malinin returned to the Milano Arena on February 21 for the post-Games gala and delivered something no one in that building was prepared for. Skating not in competition costume but in a plain gray hoodie and ripped jeans, with the word "fear" printed upside down across his chest, he performed a raw solo to N.F.'s The Fear — a track built around anxiety and the struggle for self-control. Rather than play to the crowd, he choreographed a detailed reenactment of his own mental breakdown: miming doom-scrolling through hate comments, retreating into his hood, physically embodying the paralysis he described feeling the moment he froze in his starting position on February 13. The performance ended in complete silence as he mimed placing headphones over his ears — a closing image that stopped the arena cold. Notably, despite finishing outside the top three, organizers made an exception to include him in the gala lineup, a decision that underscored both his standing in the sport and what they clearly anticipated he would do with the moment. He later told reporters the performance was a direct release of the emotional weight he'd carried over the past twelve months, and framed what lies ahead — the World Championships in Prague, March 23–29 — as a deliberate redemption arc.