‘Quad God’ Ilia Malinin (USA) hit a spectacular quadruple Axel on his way to gold at Skate America. Kao Miura of Japan earned the silver medal and Korea’s Junhwan Cha claimed the bronze.
Skating to “Euphoria” by Labrinth, Malinin opened his performance with a spectacular quadruple Axel and reeled off a quad toe, quad Lutz, quad Salchow and a triple Lutz-triple Axel combination. The only error came when he under-rotated both jumps in his quad Lutz-Euler triple Salchow combination and fell.
The 2022 ISU World Junior Champion posted a personal best of 194.29 points and racked up 280.37 points overall to move up from fourth place in the Short Program to first after the Free Skate. Malinin was competing in his first ‘real’ ISU Grand Prix event as the 2020 edition was held as a domestic competition because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I felt great, it was a really good skate. I’m still in shock,” Malinin said. “I just know that I trusted my practice and it worked well. It was very important to forget what I did yesterday (in the Short Program) and just focus on the long. I was really well prepared going into the long. That gave me the confidence to try the quad Axel and I was able to pull it off. I was very happy with how I landed it. I just have to keep that same confidence with every competition I do.”
Skate America in Norwood (USA) October 21-23 is the first of six events in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series. More than 150 Skaters/Couples representing 29 ISU Members have been invited. The maximum number of entries for each event is 12 Ladies, 12 Men, 8 Pairs and 10 Ice Dance couples.
