Such are what Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto, the three-time former world titlist, calls the “Olympic demons” which prey not on the body but on the mind.
You take the ice, you see the five rings and you sense the now-or-never pressure that contenders feel about an opportunity that comes but once a quadrennium and that for many of them never will again.
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Glenn didn’t make the 2018 team. Four years ago she tested positive for COVID at the US championships and withdrew before the free skate.
This figured to be her last chance at 26. Her Games did not start well. Glenn botched her long program in the team competition, putting what had seemed to be a likely victory in jeopardy.
“I feel guilty,” she said.
Ilia Malinin clinched the title for the Americans and Glenn received a gold medal which she doubted she deserved. Meanwhile she was being eviscerated on social media (“a scary amount of hate/threats”) for expressing her political views as an openly pansexual woman.
For two minutes Tuesday all of the angst seemed behind her. But the Olympic demons have haunted the skating arena all week. Malinin, who hadn’t been beaten in three years and was ahead going into the men’s free skate, was the first to feel them.
Coach Damon Allen was left to console Amber Glenn after her 67.39 in the short program.WANG ZHAO/AFP via Getty Images
The Quad God singled his quadruple Axel. Then he doubled his quad loop, fell on his second quad Lutz and fell again on his quad Salchow. Malinin finished 15th in the long program and eighth overall, by far the lowest placement ever for a world champion at the Games.
“On the world’s biggest stage, those who appear the strongest may still be fighting invisible battles on the inside,” he wrote on Instagram, calling out “vile online hatred.” “Even your happiest memories can end up tainted by the noise.”
The demons came next for Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, the world’s pairs titlists. One mistake on a lift in Sunday’s short program dumped them into fifth, seemingly out of contention for gold, and left Kihara weeping in dismay.
The partners rebounded with a flawless free skate the following night and claimed their country’s first title in the event. But Sakamoto was spooked by what she’d seen and by the squeeze she felt.
“I’ll probably die,” she fretted. “It’ll be insane. It’s a bit scary. If I say gold and come up short, it’ll leave me frustrated even with a silver and I might regret that.”
Had Sakamoto come into the Games as the four-time reigning world champion, which no woman since Carol Heiss in 1960 has done, the expectations might have been unbearable.
But when Alysa Liu unseated her in Boston last year, Sakamoto immediately felt the weight lifted.
“This is an important experience, to feel this crushing defeat,” she said. “Because now I can be an underdog.”
Very often the skating world belongs to those who haven’t yet sampled the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
Japanese teenage Ami Nakai enjoyed every moment of posting a 78.71 to lead the medal contenders.Ashley Landis/Associated Press
Ami Nakai, the 17-year-old Japanese leaper who’s a five-ringed rookie, won the short with an exuberant program that included a triple Axel and a demanding triple Lutz combination, and that had her visibly delighted with herself throughout.
“There’s no way I stand a chance against Kaori,” Nakai reckoned. “Right now I’m just enjoying these Olympics.”
Liu, the Bay Area native who’d been tipped as the next ice queen when she was 13, walked away from the sport at 16 after the last Games because she felt burned out.
“I was so into skating that I really didn’t do much else,” Liu said when she began what became a two-year retirement to explore life beyond the rink. “Skating takes up your whole life, almost.”
This time at Olympus she’s doing it primarily for the fun of being back on the planet’s biggest playground. Being in contention for gold — Liu is third behind Nakai and Sakamoto — is a treat.
“Even if I mess up and fall that’s really OK, too,” said Liu, who’d be the first American champion since Sarah Hughes in 2002 if she wins. “I’m fine with any outcome as long as I’m out there and I am. So there’s nothing to lose.”
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John Powers can be reached at [email protected].
