On Saturday night, American Ilia Malinin became the first figure skater to land a quad axel at a Grand Prix event, which is the highest level of skating competition. Malinin, who is just 17 years old, landed the first-ever quad axel in skating history last month at the U.S. Classic in Lake Placid, a lower-level international event.
His perfect quad axel in his free skate at Skate America is the first time he landed it in a high-level competition that was actually broadcast on a major television network (NBC), which means it was the first time that a large audience got to see Malinin’s quad axel, and everyone reacted appropriately.
Just listen to the crowd cheering for nearly fifteen seconds after Malinin opened his free skate with his clean, pristine quad axel!
“The whole building was screaming for at least a couple of seconds after that, I didn’t even know the music was still playing,” Malinin told reporters after his skate. NBC analyst and gold medalist Tara Lipinski actually shrieked on the live broadcast when Malinin effortlessly soared into his quad axel. “Oh my goodness!” she said. “That was beautiful, he floated down! The room he had!”
Lipinski was breathless for a good reason. Here’s why the moment was such a big deal:
Why is the quad axel so difficult?
For the uninitiated, this might look like any other jump, but this jump is the most elusive in skating. It is by far the most difficult, and until Malinin pulled it off, it seemed impossible, because the forward entry makes it four-and-a-half rotations in the air. For every other jump, skaters go into it by turning backward, meaning every other quad jump is just four rotations. Before Malinin landed one last month in competition, no man had ever landed a fully rotated quad axel in competition. No woman has ever attempted one.
Malinin has been chasing this jump for a while, and those who follow him on Instagram (his handle is, fittingly, quadg0d) knew this was coming soon enough. In May, he posted a practice video of a clean 4A, and in July, he posted another video of a 4A from an exhibition practice in Japan.
Has anyone else attempted a quad axel?
Japanese skater Yuzuru Hanyu chased the quad axel in competition for three years. Hanyu retired from competitive skating in July, but he nearly achieved the feat last December at Japan Nationals, but he two-footed the landing and the jump was downgraded (meaning he was short more than 1/2 of a rotation). At the 2022 Olympics in February, Hanyu was so dedicated to landing the quad axel in his free skate that he sacrificed a shot at another Olympic medal in order to try the jump again, knowing that if he attempted it and didn’t pull it off instead of going for an easier quad, his scores wouldn’t be good enough to land him on the podium. He fell on his Olympic attempt, but the jump was officially scored as under-rotated (less than 1/2 of a rotation short) and it became the best 4A attempt in competition by any skater.
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If you’re not convinced that this is a big deal yet, let’s take a look at the scores.
Hanyu, who had the previous best crack at the quad axel at this past Olympics, scored 5.00 on the element, which was marked as under-rotated. The base value for a quad axel at the top of a program is 12.50, and from there, skaters can earn a higher score based on how well they execute the element. Malinin scored an extra point for his grade of execution score in Lake Placid in September for a 13.50 for the element. This time around at Skate America, he scored a 16.61,an extra 4.11 points for his grade of execution.
Who is Malinin?
Malinin — coached by his parents, who were both competitive skaters representing Uzbekistan — placed second as his first-ever senior nationals in January, but he wasn’t selected to be on the U.S. Olympic team, which is a whole other argument we can have in another article.
But Malinin just keeps getting better and better, and he doesn’t even turn 18 until December. This is his first full season competing at the senior level, and Skate America was his first of three events on the Grand Prix circuit. He began the season with the most impressive start possible, and his personal-best free skate score made him the youngest-ever Skate America champion. His astronomical free skate score brought him from a fourth-place short program score to the top of the podium.
As he waited for his score, Malinin put on a black beanie with “quadg0d” embroidered on it in white stitching. The teen skater said on Instagram Live in May that he’s working on quintuple jumps as well as the quad axel. Now that I’ve seen this insane feat of athleticism, I fully believe that if anyone can pull off something that unprecedented, it’s Malinin.
(Photo: Eric Canha / USA Today)
