I can only imagine how Olympic skaters endure the terrifying minutes in the tunnel before taking the ice. I’ve experienced more than 50 (far less impressive) tunnels in my 13-year figure skating career thus far — we shake out our nerves, stretch our trembling arms, and try to find the calm beneath the bright fluorescent lights that feel much brighter than they are.
But the Olympics carry a whole hidden kind of pressure.
I’ve been skating since I was 4 years old — I’ve competed in dozens of competitions, some where I stood proudly atop the podium with a gold medal resting against my collarbone, and others where I stood next to it, silent, holding back tears. After every performance, I dissected myself before anyone else could. I went to practice, dialed down on my mistakes and returned to competition, only to fail once again.
Eventually I learned something that protocol sheets cannot quantify: Landing a jump means nothing if your mind cannot survive the moment you need to land it.
Mental training is not optional.
Figure skating is decided on millimeters of steel and hundredths of a point. Fourteen officials analyze every movement — nine judges, a technical panel consisting of two technical specialists and a technical controller and a data and replay operator behind screens. They enter numbers that can define a career in seconds. But you won’t be happy with your numbers if your thoughts spiral faster than your spins.
This Olympics made that truth impossible to ignore.
U.S. figure skater Ilia Malinin arrived in Italy as the untouchable force. His name consumed headlines, billboards and merch — he was everywhere. Undefeated since the Grand Prix Final in 2023, he redefined physics with his historic quad axel, a jump that seemed inhuman until he landed it in 2022 at just 17 years old. The self-proclaimed “Quad God” wore confidence like armor — and for years, it worked, living up to the title set upon him. Rightly believing he was invincible, he carried little self-doubt. But failure is inevitable, and unfortunately for Malinin, it came to him at the wrong time, which is how he fumbled in his Olympic free skate, hard.
I was on a school trip when the men’s free skate event started. I propped my phone against my water glass, muffled my laughter and squinted at the screen as conversations around me faded. The podium was expected; Ilia on top, as always. But as soon as he took the ice, he looked a way I had never seen before. Nervous. Something was off.
When he fell, my stomach dropped. I felt like I was in a fever dream. This disaster of a free skate was undoubtedly the least expected thing to happen at these Olympic Games. I watched him break down at the end of his treacherous free skate, his head in his hands, wearing an expression I never thought I’d see on a god like him.
After his free skate, Malinin admitted he was not mentally prepared for the Olympic spotlight. The athlete who made history confronted the same invisible opponent every skater knows: the mind.
That is what the Olympics strip away — the illusion that talent alone is enough.
The irony was embedded in his own free skate music — a line widely attributed to Socrates: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Socrates argued that wisdom begins with humility — with admitting that certainty is an illusion. No matter how perfect you look in practice, the unknown — pressure, fear, expectation — can dismantle you in seconds. To survive, you must accept that you are not invincible. You must train for uncertainty as deliberately as you train your jumps. But when you’ve spent years being told you’re untouchable, humility can be harder to access than any quad.
At the 2024 U.S. National Championships in Columbus, I sat feet from the tunnel as Isabeau Levito skated a beautiful yet shaky free skate. Nearby, Amber Glenn watched with clenched fists, her chin resting tense against them. You could feel the years in that moment — near misses, doubt, public scrutiny, battles off the ice that forced her to rebuild before she could succeed.
When the scores flashed and Glenn became national champion, her scream wasn’t just joy. It was release.
At the Milan Olympics, after a devastating 13th-place short program, Glenn climbed 10 whole places in the free skate to finish fifth overall — a rarity in a sport that rarely forgives early mistakes. Old Amber might’ve unraveled, but having known failure and learned persistence, she launched her “Believe and Breathe” campaign, a mindset Amber and other skaters like me have adapted, and she was able to skate a season’s best free skate and deliver a message to the whole world.
Then there is Alysa Liu.
She retired at 16 after the Beijing Olympics, burned out by pressure. Two and half years later she returned with a radically different attitude. “My life does not depend on skating,” she has said. That detachment freed her, and now she stands as a historical Olympic champion — becoming the first U.S. woman to win the individual gold medal since Sarah Hughes 24 years ago.
Three skaters. Three stories. Three truths.
Malinin’s armor cracked, Glenn transformed struggle into success and Liu stepped away long enough to separate herself from sport. The Olympics did not reward the most technically gifted skater; it made a champion of the one who could metabolize pressure. We headline quads, scores and redemption arcs, but the real competition happens internally — in the seconds before the music starts, in the moment after a mistake, in whether an athlete spirals or transcends.
The Olympics force you into the unknown. They strip away certainty. They reveal that no one — not even a “Quad God” — is immune to doubt. The storm comes for everyone. The only question is whether you resist it or learn to skate through it.
As an athlete, that lesson is what resonates with me most.
Mental training is not optional. It is not supplementary. It is not something you address only after failure. It is the training. Because unresolved fear, ego, trauma — they surface under lights brighter than any practice session can simulate.
The Olympics did not show us who could jump the highest. They showed us who could withstand themselves.
And in a sport balanced on millimeters of a blade, that might be the most difficult element of all.
