Figure skater Ilia Malinin’s risky theatrics helped Team USA clinch the gold medal in the figure skating team event at the Winter Olympics.
The Americans successfully defended their Olympic title in the team event by holding off the Japanese on Sunday night in the three-day competition at the Milan-Cortina Games.
Malinin, who is dubbed the ‘Quad God’ thanks to his impressive talent for landing the notoriously challenging quadruple jumps, was crucial to the victory.
He successfully landed five of the moves he has become synonymous during his free skate for score of 200.03 points.
But it was another daring move that caught the attention of fans. Malinin, the son of Uzbek Olympic skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, performed a trick that hasn’t been seen on the Olympic stage for 50 years.
Setting up the move with a short rotation, the two-time World Champion briefly traveled backwards and backflipped into a right-legged landing, before he rotated out of the maneuver.
Figure skater Ilia Malinin’s risky theatrics helped Team USA clinch the gold medal
The 21-year-old performed a backflip during his routine, which has only just been made legal
Malinin’s performance was enough to lead the USA to the top of the podium in the team event
The moment brought 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic to his feet, his mouth agape and his eyes wide in shock.
‘I’ve heard from everyone that after I landed my backflip he was standing there, hands on his head, and I was like, “Oh my God, that´s incredible,”‘ Malinin said.
‘That’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment seeing a famous tennis player watching my performance.’
The backflip has been prohibited at the Olympics for 50 years because of its inherent danger on the ice.
However, the restrictions were lifted in competition ahead of the Milan-Cortina games after the International Skating Union reversed course and made the move legal in 2024.
American skater Terry Kubicka became the first one to execute it at the 1976 Innsbruck Games before it was banned.
French skater Surya Bonaly did it at the 1998 Winter Olympics, landing it on one blade, but as the move was illegal at the time and she was deducted for it.
However, while legal once again, the backflip is legal once again, it is not classed as a point-scoring maneuver.
Malinin’s sensational maneuver left 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic stunned
The backflip is allowed at the Olympics for the first time for 50 years but is not point-scoring
But that didn’t matter to Malinin. The rest of the performance that he laid down was enough to boost the USA to a narrow victory over the Japanese.
With the teams tied after seven of eight performances, Malinin calmly delivered for the Americans, scoring 200.03 points for his free skate, atoning for a mediocre short program – at least by his lofty standards – one night earlier.
That was enough to beat Japanese sensation Shun Sato, who followed him to the ice, hit a trio of quads of his own, but could only manage 194.86 points in finishing second.
The U.S. finished with 69 points while Japan had 68, earning the silver medal for the second consecutive Olympics.
‘I was like, ‘Okay, I’m the deciding factor,” Malinin said later, after the U.S. got the medal ceremony it was denied at the Beijing Games, when Russian doping held up their awards for more than two years. ”I need to just, you know, do what I need to do.”
Malinin opened with a big quad flip, opted for a safer triple axel over his quad, and overcame a couple of mistakes along the way to finish with aplomb. The son of Olympic skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov ended with back-to-back combos, a quad toe-triple flip and a quad salchow-triple axel, leaving a crowd full of American and Japanese fans roaring in approval.
France’s Surya Bonaly did it at the 1998 Winter Olympics but the move was illegal at the time
Malinin is dubbed the ‘Quad God’ thanks to his talent for landing the quadruple jumps
‘I knew that it was going to be a tiebreaker between the men´s event,’ Malinin said, ‘so I really just went straight into this, and just went for it. It went exactly the way I wanted, the way I planned. And you know, I’m so thankful for that.’
It wasn’t quite over yet. Sato did everything he could to give Japan a chance.
From his opening quad lutz to his finishing triple lutz, Sato was nearly perfect, producing an easier but cleaner program than Malinin had earlier. He pumped his fist the moment his music ended, then had to wait to hear whether it was enough.
It wasn’t quite.
‘I didn’t really think about whether or not I could beat Ilia,’ Sato said through a translator, ‘but I definitely wanted to do it.’
