What Ilia’s Performance Can Teach Us About Resilience

Ilia Malinin, better known as “The Quad God,” was the poster boy for the 2026 Winter Olympics. The embodiment of a trailblazer in the sport of figure skating, he was an absolute favorite for the gold medal. Many commentators mused that the only way another would be in that top spot on the podium is if Malinin choked—but he’s not that type of skater.

Fast forward to the games, the spotlight, and the cameras following him so close you can see the sweat on his brow. After completing three performances, Illia reached his last event, called the long program, where he choked. The shoe-in for the gold medal ended up off the podium entirely with multiple, uncharacteristic falls. But how could this have happened?

He explains, “I just felt like all the traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding in my head. So many negative thoughts flooded into there and I could not handle it.”

To some, this may sound dramatic—perhaps you’re thinking it’s just sports, it’s not that deep. Let’s break it down.

What happened to Ilia doesn’t just occur to elite athletes. It can happen anywhere from performing in a school play to giving a presentation at work. Being under intense pressure in an environment that is new or different, while attempting to do an activity with a high level of difficulty, causes our nervous system to become activated.

Nervous system activation is essential for giving us the energy and focus we need to be able to perform a difficult task under pressure, but if it gets too activated, we stop just being energized, and we start to enter survival mode—sometimes called fight, flight or freeze mode. 

Pressure, novelty, and challenge are the three main factors that can lead to the phenomenon we call choking, the "yips," or more generally, performance anxiety. Our thinking, planning, and organizing parts of the brain shut off. Our body is running on emotion and memory. A part of the brain called the amygdala, responsible for processing our memories, detecting threats, and sending out protective emotions like fear and anger, takes over our brain. When the amygdala is running the show, feelings of panic can set in, and our brains search for confirming (yes I’ve done this before, I have evidence I can overcome this challenge!) or disconfirming (no, I have no reference for this, or the last time I did something new I failed) memories.

Think of the Disney movie Inside Out, where memories are portrayed as differently colored glass spheres. When activated, our amygdala is drawn to the blue, red, and purple spheres that contain memories related to sadness, anger and fear. This relates directly to Ilia’s recollection of stepping on the ice—all the difficult, traumatic memories flooding his system. This doesn’t mean our yellow, more joyful memories are gone—they’re just less easily accessible. We have the ability to train our brains in less stressful environments to be able to find those yellow, empowering memories with more ease in times of activation with targeted practice and repetition. 

Now let’s apply this information to Ilia, 21 years old and competing at the first Olympics of his life. He has had an incredibly successful career, not having faced many setbacks outside of the committee not sending him to the 2022 Beijing Olympics, which fueled his motivation to push the limits of the sport. He is the only figure skater to have successfully landed a quadruple axel in competition, and he planned to include up to six quad jumps in his program (hence the “quad god” nickname and the primary marketing of the USA Olympics being focused on him).

Here’s our perfect storm: new environment + high pressure/nerves + level of difficulty = high probability of the effects of performance anxiety that could take someone beyond the needed level of energizing nervous system activation, and into the realm of survival mode. The mental effects of this level of performance anxiety (self-doubt, blanking out, difficulty concentrating, overwhelm, and panic) paired with the physical effects (rapid heart rate, muscle tension, sweating, and trembling) make it incredibly difficult to perform up to one’s highest capabilities. Then, of course, the added challenge is that once these symptoms set in and performance starts to suffer, we begin to experience a self-reinforcing cycle as we are presented with real-time evidence of our worst fears and insecurities, leading to more anxiety, more mistakes, then more anxiety, and so on... 

Ilia’s performance makes sense on a biological level, and it doesn’t only happen to world class athletes. If you can relate to this perfect storm, this cycle of symptoms, you are not alone. While these responses are our bodies' ways of protecting us, we can also work with our bodies and minds outside of these stressful events to build resilience and tools to stay grounded and regulated when the pressure hits. 

Reacting this way to intense stress and pressure does not mean you or your body is broken—quite the opposite actually! It is an expected (and important) survival response to perceived danger. The good news is, our minds are flexible and can be rewired to recognize that these performance anxiety triggers are not a threat to our system, so we can better harness the increased energy of the moment to fuel performance, rather than hinder it. Some typical practices to begin to work with and regulate our bodies include breathing exercises, visualizations, grounding techniques, embodied affirmations, and mindset reframing. At the bottom of this post, there is a basic overview of two of these tools for you to check out and see how they fit for you. 

By overcoming obstacles—whether it be on the middle school baseball field or Olympic ice—we build resilience. Resilience is one of the most empowering skills to master. It is the embodiment of the knowledge that you can learn from your mistakes and rebuild yourself after failure. As Ilia sets his eyes to the next Olympic cycle in four years, I have a strong suspicion that the resilience he’s building from this experience is only going to improve his skating, his mental game, and his view of himself as an athlete and individual. While many, including myself, have viewed his Olympic performance with heartbreak and despair, there is another side to it. This stumble in Ilia’s career has created an opportunity to show other athletes and high performers the power of resilience in the face of setbacks. 

Practice Exercises: 

Box Breathing: 

Box breathing is a classic breathing technique to help regulate and calm our bodies in times of stress. It not only helps us regulate our system but also gives our minds something to focus on to ground and focus in times of stress and pressure. It goes like this: 

1. Breathe in for four seconds while drawing a horizontal line. (on a piece of paper, in the air with your finger or visually in your mind) 

2. Hold breath for four seconds while drawing a vertical line down. 

3. Exhale for four seconds while drawing a horizontal line across the bottom. 

4. Hold breath for four seconds while drawing a vertical line up, connecting the lines to form your box. 

5. Repeat at least three times, or more if desired. 

5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique: 

This grounding technique can be a helpful tool to reorient to the present moment when you get lost in the thought spirals, emotional overwhelm, or balancing external expectations. Remaining grounded in the present without the internal noise can lead to more relaxed performance and mindful practice. Here’s how it’s done: 

1. Take a deep breath if it feels helpful and either mentally or verbally list five things you can see right now in your surroundings.

2. Now list four things you can touch or physically feel in your environment or on your body.

3. Move on to listing three things you can hear in the present moment, external to your thoughts.

4. Name two things that you can smell in the here and now. 

5. Finally, identify one thing you can taste.

Let us know about your experience working with these exercises in your life. We hope they help you to find a little more regulation in stressful situations. Trauma, neurodivergence, relational stressors, and underlying mental health challenges can make building resilience and overcoming performance anxiety more complicated. If you feel like you could use some extra help showing up as your best self on the ice, field, at work, or even just in your day-to-day life, we’re here for you.