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Ilia Malinin performs during the figure skating programme Bol On Ice, 4th edition, on 5 January 2025 … [+] at the Unipol Arena in Bologna. Italy (Photo by Andrea Martini/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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He just turned 20 in December 2024. Two years ago Ilia Malinin was still a senior at George C Marshall high school in Vienna, Virginia where his favorite subject was physics. He was also just crowned US National Men’s Figure Skating Champion–for the third year in a row. Wow.
2025 US National Figure Skating Championships January 20-26
Ilia Malinin at just twenty years of age won his third US Figure Skating Championship in front of an enthusiastic crowd in Wichita, Kansas on January 26th. Malinin became the first skater in US Championship history to attempt seven (7) quadruple jumps in his program, completing six successfully. This included one quadruple axel, the most difficult jump in ice skating, as well as five quadruple jumps. He would also add an aerial twist (nicknamed a “Raspberry”) and a backflip. At the end of his four-minute routine the crowd leapt to their feet and gave him a raucous standing ovation.
WICHITA, KANSAS – JANUARY 26: Ilia Malinin circles the ice after the medal ceremony for the … [+] Championship Men during the 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Intrust Bank Arena on January 26, 2025 in Wichita, Kansas. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
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His performance earned the reigning World champion a whopping free skate score of 219.23 and an overall total of 331.31, both personal U.S.-best marks. Both scores rank second in U.S. Championships history.
The Quadruple Axel
The Quadruple Axel is widely considered to be the hardest jump in figure skating.
There are six types of jumps in skating in order of difficulty: the toe loop, the loop, the salchow, the flip, the lutz and the Axel, named after its creator Axel Paulsen. The Quad Axel requires the skater to skate on one side of the blade when lifting off the ice. Here’s the catch: The skater has to make 4 and ½ revolutions because the Quad Axel starts with the skater facing forward, and ends with them landing backwards. They must make an extra half revolution to do this. Hence the Quad Axel is really 4.5 revolutions–not 4.
Below is Malinin doing the first-ever Quad Axel at the World Championships in December 2024.
In an interview in Scientific American in 2014 World and Olympic figure-skating coach Tom Zakrajsek was quoted as saying the quad axel requires the skater to be in the air .70 seconds and land with the force of seven times your body weight. “That is a lot of force,” Zakrajsek said. “When they fall on a jump like that, some say it feels like their intestines end up in their throat.”
A Family Affair
Ilia’s Russian-born parents, Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, both represented Uzbekistan at the Winter Olympic Games. They have trained Ilia since he was six. The bloodlines go back one generation further: Ilia’s grandfather, Valery Matlin is a coach and was a competitor for the former Soviet Union. Matlin currently coaches skaters in Novosibirsk, a larger city in southwestern Siberia. He first put his daughter Tatiana on ice when she was five.
Valery attributed much of his grandson’s success to his daughter, calling her “a very goal-oriented person. … If she wanted it, she would achieve it. If she wanted (Ilia) to become a good athlete, she made every effort.”
TOKYO, JAPAN – APRIL 15: Ilia Malinin of United States (R) poses for a photo with his mother and … [+] coach Tatiana Malinina after a training session during the World Team Trophy at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on April 15, 2023 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Toru Hanai – International Skating Union/International Skating Union via Getty Images)
International Skating Union via Getty Images
No Overnight Successes
Malinin has achieved success at a young age. At 18 in 2022 after placing second at the U.S. Championships he was named an alternate to the 2022 U.S. Olympic Team. And as an 11-year old boy he would win a junior national title in 2016. Gifted? Sure. But Malinin would also tell a reporter after that junior title where he threw two strong double-axel jumps: “I’ve been working to land both of my axels for a long time, probably six months.”
GRENOBLE, FRANCE – DECEMBER 8: Ilia Malinin of the United States performs a backflip during Gala … [+] Exhibition during the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final – Grenoble at Patinoire Polesud, on December 8, 2024, in Grenoble, France. ((Photo by Daniela Porcelli – International Skating Union/International Skating Union via Getty Images)
International Skating Union via Getty Images
Malinin typically trains on ice for two hours every morning per his mother. But when Covid-19 pandemic fears caused many ice rinks to shut down, Malinin did not take a break. He pivoted to three hours a day off the ice practicing jumps, spins and choreography.
Not A Normal Teenage Life
There is just no getting around it. An elite teenage athlete like Malinin ends up making trade offs in order to reach the pinnacle of his sport. He and his parents tried to normalize his high school experience at George C. Marshall, rarely asking for any accommodations and minimizing the number of school days he missed while traveling to national and international competitions. This meant attending some classes in person and some online. Responding to a recent interviewer about those years Ilia said: “I have to travel places sometimes. I don’t miss a lot but when I do the teachers work with me and are understanding about making up work and extensions. Teachers will stop me and say, ‘I just saw you on TV, why didn’t you tell me?’”
Now 20, Ilia is trying to continue his education one year before the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games. In 2024 He was able to complete three online courses at George Mason University in spite of an intense travel schedule.
State of George Mason on the campus of George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. (Photo by: Robert … [+] Knopes/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
A Place In Figure Skating Lore
So before he has even reached the legal drinking age in Virginia (21) Malinin has already solidified his place in figure skating lore. By attempting and completing a Quad Axel and five other quad jumps in the recent U.S. Championships he tied a record for most quadruple jumps landed in one program, along with winning three straight U.S. championships.
Now, can he make the U.S. Olympic Team? Will we see him in the Winter Games in 2026? Will this young man, who will have just turned 21, go on to earn an Olympic medal?
WICHITA, KANSAS – JANUARY 26: Ilia Malinin skates in the Championship Men Free Skate during the 2025 … [+] Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Intrust Bank Arena on January 26, 2025 in Wichita, Kansas. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
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Six-time U.S. national figure skating champion Nathan Chen is a believer. In 2022 Chen won his sixth championship and Malinin was second. It was Chen’s narrowest margin of victory in overall points of his six titles. “Ilia is miles ahead of where I was in 2016 based on quality and consistency,” Chen said. “He definitely has an amazing future ahead of him.”
WICHITA, KANSAS – JANUARY 26: Ilia Malinin lays on the ice after skating in the Championship Men … [+] Free Skate during the 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Intrust Bank Arena on January 26, 2025 in Wichita, Kansas. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
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