What makes ‘Quad God’ Ilia Malinin so good at landing the hardest jump in figure skating? | CBC Sports

Comply with Winter Olympic SportsPersonalize Your Feed

U.S. figure skater Ilia Malinin is not any stranger to creating historical past on the ice. The 21-year-old, who hails from Virginia, underlined his gold medal-clinching free skate on Sunday night time with a backflip that he landed on one blade — also referred to as “the Bonaly flip,” named after French skater Surya Bonaly, who was the first to drag off the transfer at the 1998 Nagano Video games, when it was nonetheless banned. 

On Sunday, Malinin turned the first figure skater to legally execute the transfer at the Olympics — one which was performed for the love of the recreation, because it didn’t earn him any technical factors. 

However the skating revolutionary is best recognized for being the first individual to efficiently land one in every of the hardest jumps in figure skating — the quadruple axel — in competitors in 2022. He was simply 17 years previous at the time.

The transfer is the solely fundamental jump with a ahead takeoff, and includes 4 and a half rotations in the air.

His knack for landing quad jumps has even earned him the nickname “Quad God,” which he’s embraced wholeheartedly by making it part of his social media handles. 

“How is Ilia Malinin so good at quads? Simple. Expertise is the very first thing,” sports activities author Pj Kwong wrote in an e mail to CBC Information.

“He’s a pure jumper,” mentioned Kwong, who can also be a veteran figure skating coach. “Then we have to have in mind the legacy of the jumpers who got here earlier than him who paved the approach and threw down the gauntlet to encourage him to tackle the unattainable.” 

A Canadian Olympian weighs in

That features Canada’s personal Kurt Browning, a legendary figure skater who himself made historical past by turning into the first individual to efficiently land a ratified quad jump in competitors in 1988.(Quad jumps are a broad class that features the quadruple axel.) Browning mentioned the axel is understood to be the “king of jumps.”

“The most important cause why skaters imagine that’s as a result of it is actually the solely jump that primarily initiates ahead,” Browning advised CBC Information.

Most jumps in figure skating are landed on the again of the skate, Browning mentioned. That is partially as a result of the toe decide — or the small, saw-like ridge at the entrance of the skate — makes it way more troublesome to land ahead.

“When you jump off ahead and need to land backwards, you must get one additional … half of a revolution in to make that occur,” Browning added. 

He mentioned most skaters “don’t love” the ahead takeoff, however Malinin “clearly does.”

That makes Malinin’s secret weapon “twofold,” Browning mentioned. He has a spring in his takeoff going into the jump that enables him to ascend straight up. This lets him keep in the air lengthy sufficient to get the rotations in.

“He doesn’t have one superpower. He has two or three, in addition to his psychological power that enables him to get this quad axel in.”

A household of Olympians

It in all probability additionally helps that Malinin has two former Olympians for folks and coaches. 

Malinin’s dad and mom, Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, are each former Olympic skaters themselves, having competed for Uzbekistan, in accordance with CBS Information.

Ilia Malinin’s 2nd place end retains People 1st general in figure skating group occasion

American Ilia Malinin scored 98.00 factors to complete in second place in the Olympic figure skating group occasion males’s quick program. That was good sufficient to maintain the People in the prime spot general.

However regardless of his superstardom, Malinin advised The Related Press that at the finish of the day, skaters are human, too. 

“I wouldn’t inform folks I’m untouchable. I need the reverse. I need folks to narrate to me,” Malinin mentioned.

“Sure, I’m doing all these loopy issues on the ice that defy physics in some methods. I nonetheless need them to see all of us skaters are human beings.”