Nineteen-year old Ilia Malinin reigns the wonder boy of World Figure Skating, one of the most fascinating and enchanting sports as the 2024 World champion, 2023–24 Grand Prix Final champion, 2023 World bronze medalist, the 2022-23 Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, a six-time Grand Prix medalist (four gold, one silver, one bronze), a three-time ISU Challenger Series medalist (two gold, one bronze), the 2023 and 2024 U.S. national champion, …
The American has indeed made such a grueling sport sweet music by the consummate ease of the lithe at work At the March 2024 men’s singles World Figure Skating Championships in Montreal, the teenager was a spellbinding transformation lit up by six quadruple jumps that included a quadruple axel, a feat involving four and a half rotations in the air. It captivatingly echoed to the HBO series’ theme song to further heightening the drama of Malinin’s performance in a 30 seconds moody string music opener as the 19-year-old student at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., was the crowd marvel in the quad axel costumed resembling a classic tuxedo. Malinin’s incredibility in the art is exemplified by becoming the only skater to have landed that jump in competition having first done so in 2022.
The American went on to drive home why he has won world acclaim by the nickname Quad God perfecting three more quads: a quad lutz, a quad loop and a quad salchow in a blending harmonization to the ending of the “Succession” theme’s piano riffs – going on to land two more in the four-minute performance.
It is though a pity that Malinin, who started skating to the “Succession” theme last fall, is yet to watch the show. “I don’t have a subscription to HBO, but if I did get it, I’d definitely watch,” he has stated.
The has influenced His performances have found hand in hand success with the network’s programming having last season performed a free skate program set to a selection of music from the series “Euphoria.”
“I didn’t watch ‘Euphoria’ either,” he said, “but I’ve heard it’s a really good series.”
Malinin, in fact nearly missed the recent skating championships because of a “small injury” that kept him off the ice for a week leading up to the event. His total competition score of 333.76 — which was more than 24 points above that of the second-place finisher, Yuma Kagiyama underwrote his progress since entering the international senior men’s skating circuit in 2021.
The champions has revealed that learning to land a quad axel jump has been his greatest motivation to becoming an innovator and game changer. A feat he once thought he would never be able to achieve.
Interestingly his primary coaches, Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, are also his parents having been Olympic skaters for Uzbekistan.
“They tell me not to be so stressed before a competition and how to maximize practice to make it efficient,” Malinin has disclosed of his success story. Also mentoring him has been Rafael Arutyunyan, longtime coach of the American Olympic figure skaters Nathan Chen and Adam Rippon.
Mastering the quad axel has fired Malinin to attempting a quintuple jump, a maneuver that involves five airborne rotations and has never been performed in competition.
He is now busy time mentally preparing for his next goal which he has described as “I like to push the boundaries of physical abilities and the boundaries of this sport.”