MILAN (AP) — Ilia Malinin kept teasing fans at the Cortina Olympics in Milan by submitting plans for the U.S. figure skating star to attempt a quadruple axel, a difficult 4 1/2-turn jump that no one but him has ever completed in competition.
However, in both programs of Tuesday night’s gold-medal-winning team competition and his individual short program, “The God of Four” has yet to attempt the most difficult quadruple jump, instead opting for the safer triple axel that everyone else is doing.
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“The lazy part of me,” Marinen said with a laugh, “is just forgetting to change the elements of the plan.”
Or Malinen might have saved it for his finale.
He was five points ahead of Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama and France’s Adam Siao Him Fa in the free skate, a gap that seemed almost insurmountable and gave him some wiggle room if he failed to attempt a quadruple jump.
Marinen naturally included the event in the plan he presented on Friday night, which will be part of a record-setting seven quadruple jumps.
“I hope I feel good enough to do this,” Marinen said more seriously. “But of course, I always prioritize health and safety. So I really want to get myself in the right frame of mind so that I can really feel confident going into it.”
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best laid plans
The content of a planned program is just that: a plan. Skaters often deviate from it based on how they feel.
Maybe they encountered difficulties in practice and changed it. Or they might make a mistake on a day-to-day basis—say, screwing up the first jump of a combination pass—and then they’re forced to change their plans on the fly.
What makes the quad axel so difficult is that it’s the only one of the six major jumps in figure skating that starts facing forward, which gives it an extra half-turn. In fact, the jump is so difficult that even elite skaters have trouble adapting to the triple version.
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“I never thought I’d see anyone do a quadruple axel,” admits 1984 Olympic champion Scott Hamilton. “Not in my lifetime.”
Indeed, most people think this is impossible.
And then Malinen proved it.
In September 2022, at the little-known U.S. International Figure Skating Classic, he stunned the sports world with a near-perfect quad as part of his winning free skate. Marinen was only 17 years old at the time.
How did he do it? Spins at about 340 rpm, or as fast as a ceiling fan set to high.
“It’s incredible to see what Ilya has done in the last three years,” said 1994 Olympic champion Kristi Yamaguchi. “I know a couple of us guys — Brian Boitano, Scott Hamilton — and we talked and we said, ‘We never thought we’d live to see a quad axel show and land in a race,’ and Elijah came in and just finished it like it was nothing.”
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This is definitely something. The base value for the three-axis is 8.0 points, while the base value for the four-axis is 12.5. Coupled with the extra points Marinen can get for execution, the quad movement gives him a huge scoring advantage.
At last year’s World Championships in Boston, he landed one each of the other five quadruple jumps and won his second consecutive championship with the second-largest margin of victory in the 130-year history.
So why would he take it out? In addition to the inherent risks, the rest of Marinen’s project was so difficult that he didn’t really need it. Kagiyama planned only four quadruple jumps in Friday night’s free skate. The same is true for Xiao Qianfa.
“I want him to be a smart competitor,” said Boitano, the 1988 Olympic champion. “I know what it means for a skater to have a clean performance in the Olympics, and I really hope he has a clean performance. Yes, technical – as technical as he wants to be. But if he’s hungry to hit one of the quads, then he’s not feeling great that day and I hope he can be consistent.”
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The grandest finale?
But the son of Olympic skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov loves nothing more than raising the bar.
For example, when the International Skating Union lifted its ban on backflips last year, Malinen was one of the first to incorporate backflips into his choreography, and his tumbling backflip in Sunday’s team competition wowed tennis legend Novak Djokovic.
Marinen even created his own signature jump, a leaping, spinning move beloved by fans known as the “raspberry twist.” He was so named because his last name, “malina,” literally means “raspberry” in Russian.
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“When I was younger,” he explains, “I loved performing, whether it was randomly turning on some music at home or starting skating a routine where I would improvise and try to do triples even though I could barely do doubles. I was really passionate about the performance side of skating, and it helped me feel the energy and pressure and almost use it to my advantage.”
However, Marinen admitted to feeling a different level of pressure in the Olympic team competition. Both of his performances were mediocre by his lofty standards. But he felt much more comfortable during Tuesday night’s short program, and it showed on the ice, with a score of 108.16, within a point of his world-leading score this season.
Now, Marinen has another chance to perform at the Olympic Games in Cortina, Milan, on Friday night.
This is also the last chance to throw a quad.
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics