Ilia Malinin the quad king

[89th]

Winter Olympics are coming, and this young man has been on the radar for a few years. He's also a local kid (Northern Virginia) and I used to run by the ice rink where he trains in Reston, Virginia. Anyway... ice skating is confusing to me, but short version is... the "quad axel" jump is the hardest jump in the sport and this kid makes it look easy.

Why is the Quad Axel so hard? Any quad is (4 rotations), but the Quad Axel is so hard because it requires 4.5 rotations in the air, you have to take off forwards (way harder than backwards) and landing the skater lands with the force of 5-10x their body weight (according to google).

He's the first to land 7 quads in a program (see video below), and a backflip too.

Some say he's preparing to unveil a QUINT jump at the olympics. Which would be bananas.

Link to video

[Horace]

I read quad king and saw Winter Olympics and skating in the first sentences and I thought you’d be talking about a speed skater with ridiculous quadriceps. Would have fit.

[Mik]

Unreal. If that kid doesn't get gold I'll be very, very surprised. Such grace.

[Horace]

Pretty racist for someone named "melanin" to have basically none in his skin. Maybe his middle name is "gotno".

[jon-nyc]

It’s MALinin. He has the BAD skin color.

[89th]

He's also straight, which makes his rise to success even more miraculous! He got in trouble a few years ago for joking that he was gay so that he could get higher artistic scores from judges.

[jodi]

He’s amazing.

[jodi]

I used to watch skating religiously. Back in the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding days. Not anymore.

[89th]

Ilia is one of those athletes who’d be even more famous if they had a more marketable name.

[89th]

Great slow-mo of the hardest jump in skating. He's the only one who can do it, or has ever done it, and will (hopefully) do it in the Olympics. I know it's obvious but the ice is not bouncy. In gymnastics the floor has a spring. How he jumps that high from an ice skate is insane.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/1qwhhoj/ilia_malinins_quadruple_axel_in_slowmo/

[taiwan_girl]

Wow!!

[Renauda]

It’s an amazing jump but since he is the only skater thus far capable of completing the move, he may not be allowed to use it in competition. He may have to wait until others in his skating class can also master the jump. I seem to recall Elvis Stojko was not allowed a move in competitions that only he could perform. Forget what it was - a spin? He had to hold off employing until others could perform it. It only took a year or so.

[89th]

Yeah I was checking on that. I believe he is allowed as it's a move that has been "legal" in the skating rules, just... not done, although he's done it in many competitions in the last year or two, include 7 quads in the video earlier. I said it before, his name isn't very "marketable" but damn if I feel like the public is going to learn about him soon... same with Artemis II dammit!

[Renauda]

Interesting. Then if he can do it and land it square then he should go for it. Dazzle the judges and raise the bar.