Northern Virginia figure skater Ilia Malinin is a two-time world champion, but he isn’t a household name yet. He will be.
The 20-year-old is widely considered the best skater in the world and is the gold medal favorite with just over 100 days remaining until next year’s Winter Olympics in northern Italy.
Malinin is the only skater in history to complete and land a quadruple axel on the ice, giving him the “Quad God” nickname that adorns his social media channels. The electric jump features four and a half rotations, with the skater jumping off one foot, turning 1,620 degrees and landing on the other foot.
The move features a full second of hangtime and left the rest of the figure skating world playing catch-up.
It isn’t even his flashiest trick. The George Mason University student has started incorporating backflips into his routines after the International Skating Union lifted its ban on the move last year. The death-defying maneuver — which only a handful of skaters have landed in competitions — sucks the air out of stadiums as Malinin’s blond locks threaten to graze the ice below.
Malinin has landed the flip every time he’s attempted it during official events.
For two years now, he has dominated the figure skating circuit. He hasn’t lost a major event since the 2023 Grand Prix de France. He won that same competition by a massive 40-point margin earlier this month.
“I feel good,” Malinin told The Washington Times between training sessions this month. “Starting now, it’s a normal start to the season. But I know that, in the month or two leading up to the Olympics, things will change, one of them being the pressure that I might feel.”
The figure skating spotlight has been trained on Malinin throughout the year. He became the sport’s unofficial spokesperson following the fatal plane crash outside the District in January that killed 67 people, including 28 from the figure skating community.
Malinin, while balancing his own training and education, appeared as a talking head on TV broadcasts to explain to general audiences how the tragedy devastated his beloved community. A Virginia native, the 20-year-old knew many of the families affected by the crash. He grew up with them.
The past 12 months have been a whirlwind — from mourning the crash to performing at a memorial show at Capital One Arena to Olympic preparation. It’s only been a taste of the pressure still to come.
“I wish I had that time to catch my breath,” Malinin confessed. “I’m still working on that stamina. But it’s been such an amazing year, a grateful year.”
The gold-medal favorite is quick to critique himself. It’s essential for someone with championship aspirations — and high-risk moves. There’s little room for error when you’re doing backflips with “knife shoes” in front of eagle-eyed judges and a cheering crowd, he said.
“You really have to not only be super athletic to do all the tricks, all the jumps, to get through a program in one piece,” Malinin explained. “But also you have to be creative and unique and really thinking about that in your artistry when you’re performing so that you can really stand out on the ice.”
That’s where Malinin has started to thrive — in blending his raw athleticism with passion, creativity and attention to detail.
“Ilia’s just technically amazing with what he does,” said Shae-Lynn Bourne, Malinin’s choreographer. “If he hears he’s lacking something, he’s the first to shine a light on anything that needs improvement. He wants to tackle things wherever he needs to grow. He does not just want to coast on the things he’s good at. That’s such a beautiful thing.”
Malinin is growing his craft — and his following — in the ongoing figure skating season before the Olympics. His show-stopping performance in France was a warm-up — he didn’t feature a quad axel in his program. It’s part of a plan to slowly reach a gold-medal level.
“My motto is really just kind of go with the flow. That’s something that I’m really trying to stick to this year. But that doesn’t mean I won’t train as hard as I can and really get myself going and prepared before this Olympics,” he said. “Because in the end, my goal is to skate as best as I can, and hopefully that will get me that gold medal.”
The growing outside attention is hard to prepare for, though. He’s asked his parents — both former Olympic skaters — for tips and is eagerly accepting any help he can get.
Some of that assistance is coming from sponsors like Comcast’s Xfinity, which announced plans to sponsor a star-studded roster of athletes at next year’s Milano-Cortina Games. Malinin joined a list that featured stars like skier Mikaela Shiffrin, speed skating gold medalist Erin Jackson and women’s hockey star Taylor Heise.
Xfinity plans to provide all Team USA athletes with $2,026 grants to help them connect with family members during the Olympics.
By the end of the upcoming Games, Malinin could be in a tier of his own as Team USA’s brightest star. With that praise comes criticism. He’s ready for it all.
The skater can’t help but see the flowery articles calling him the best skater in the world and the social media comments labeling him overrated. It usually doesn’t bother him — usually.
But as he grinds away at the rink preparing for a handful of tune-ups in Canada, Japan and the U.S., Malinin is occasionally rattled by the naysayers and the weight of expectations.
“There are times where it hits harder than others,” he said. “So I think some of the times it’s okay to remind yourself that you are human, that you are a person and you are really just an average person that goes through all the same things everyone else does.”
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated how many athletes would receive Xfinity’s grants.
• Liam Griffin can be reached at lgriffin@washingtontimes.com.
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