In 2022, despite finishing in second place at the US Figure Skating Championships, Ilia Malinin was not selected for the Olympic team. At the time, he was 17 and had only just started competing on the senior circuit.
In the four years since that snub, Malinin has become the dominant face of his sport by pushing the athleticism and difficulty to new levels.
He came to the 2026 Milan Olympics having won the last four US Championships, the last 2 world titles, and 11 consecutive international singles competitions across three seasons.
His Olympic victory was treated as an almost guaranteed certainty.
But Malinin didn’t win the gold medal. He didn’t even make the podium. After a complete disaster of a free skate program, Malinin finished in 8th place overall.
After his skate, while waiting in the “kiss and cry” area for his scores, Malinin was caught on a hot mic saying:
If they sent me to Beijing 4 years ago, I wouldn’t have skated like that.
His implicit reasoning was that exposure to the pressure of the Olympics four years ago, without any expectations on him to medal, would have prepared him to better handle the pressure now, and prevent the nervous system shutdown that derailed him.
The Flaw in Counterfactual Hypotheticals
Malinin’s speculation has a name: counterfactual hypothetical.
It’s a type of hypothetical thinking that imagines an alternative outcome to a different past than the one that actually occurred.
If the past had been different, this current situation would be different.
Counterfactual hypotheticals are a common line of reasoning when things don’t go as planned or expected.
Often, we can find evidence or proof to back up our assumptions.
For example, figure skater Nathan Chen imploded in his first Olympics in 2018, and returned in 2022 to dominate and win the gold medal.
But this is a dead-end line of thinking that can fuel feelings of regret or resentment.
The truth, which Malinin himself acknowledged, is that you don’t know what would have played out differently. And even if you could know, you can’t change the past.
Maybe making the Beijing team would have prepared Malinin for the pressure of the Olympics, but maybe not getting that spot was the thing that motivated him to push himself harder and become better.
But maybe if he had made the team back then, he would have flamed out after one Olympic cycle.
A counterfactual hypothetical is a way we try to seize control when a situation feels beyond our control.
But the truth about time and experience is that the past is not changeable and the future is not predictable.
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