"One of the pleasures of watching Ilia Malinin, apart from his indifference to gravity, is to witness him becoming. Becoming a world champion, as opposed to a juvenile with a skate-park mentality and a face like a Disney prince. Becoming a master of quadruple jumps that no one else can land, rising with all the ease of a young Michael Jordan-before landing on a pair of butcher knives, on ice."
"In a sport in which medals can be determined by fractions of a point, Malinin wins by 30, 40, sometimes even 70 points, and he does so with style, sliding on his knees and cartwheeling on one hand to medleys of classical cello mixed with Gen Z electronic power bass. His signature is a quadruple axel-a jump that only he has ever successfully completed in competition, earning him his self-styled nickname, the "Quad God.""
Ilia Malinin, age 21, landed seven quadruple jumps in competition while refining his Olympic routine in Milan; no other competitor landed more than four. He routinely wins by 30, 40, sometimes even 70 points in a sport where medals can be decided by fractions. He combines extreme technical difficulty with theatrical showmanship, sliding on his knees, cartwheeling on one hand, and finishing with a backflip landed on one foot. His signature element is the quadruple axel, the only skater to land it in competition, earning the nickname "Quad God." He has said, "I broke physics... Now I think physics doesn't apply to me." He trains in Leesburg, Virginia.
Read at The Atlantic
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