Ilia Malinin's agent, Ari Zakarian, confirmed in a text message on Sunday that Malinin "will do" the World Championships in Prague from March 26-29.
Malinin has won the last two world titles and was a huge favorite for Olympic gold, but finished eighth after being, in his words, "overwhelmed" by Olympic pressure in Friday's free skate. He staggered to 15th in the free after having won the short program.
“I blew it,” he told NBC’s Andrea Joyce.
Malinin deserves props, however, for the way he handled the disappointment in facing multiple media interviews while the awards ceremonies went on without him.
His Olympic singles debut had gone awry, but Malinin still acquitted himself well, as 1956 Olympic men's champion Hayes Jenkins noted in a text message.
"I have been impressed the way Ilia has handled himself in the difficult post-event interviews and that he immediately congratulated the winner (Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan), and not just in a perfunctory way," Jenkins wrote.
After hearing his marks, Malinin walked right over to Shaidorov, who was sitting just a few feet away in the leader’s chair. The two exchanged a lengthy embrace.
“I watched him skate (from) the locker room, and I was just so proud of him,” Malinin said of Shaidorov, the first Kazakh skater to win an Olympic title. “I heard that he had not had a good season, and, you know, all of us were there to support each other."
Malinin's first words after finishing the free skate were caught by a hot mic, and included a pointed reaction to his being overlooked for the 2022 Beijing Olympics in a fraught but justifiable decision by U.S. Figure Skating. "They should have sent me to Beijing, then I wouldn't have skated like this."
In his text, Jenkins went on to describe the pressure felt by anyone going into the Winter Games as the favorite. That was the case for him, his brother, David Jenkins, and his wife, Carol Heiss, the latter two winning gold in 1960.
"Carol, David and I have talked about this,' Hayes Jenkins said. "Each of us skated in the Olympics immediately preceding the Olympics that we were 'expected' to win, since each of us were going into that second Olympics as the current world champion.
NOTHING in our competitive experience prepared us for the immense pressure of the Olympics when you are expected to win, including defending our national or world titles.
Dick Button (1948) remains the only U.S. man ever to win a gold medal in men's singles in his Olympic debut. The other six U.S. men who have won gold in men's singles all did so during their second Olympics appearance after having debuted four years earlier: Hayes Jenkins in 1956, David Jenkins in 1960, Scott Hamilton in 1984, Brian Boitano in 1988, Evan Lysacek in 2010, Nathan Chen in 2022.
Malinin, 21, went into the singles event just three days after having helped Team USA win the team event, in which he had skated both programs.
Philip Hersh, who has covered figure skating at 13 straight Olympics, is a special contributor to NBCOlympics.com.