Milan (Italy) (AFP) – With his backflips, one-handed cartwheels, and quadruple-jumps galore, US figure skater Ilia Malinin’s rip-roaring routines have proved a star attraction at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. A third backflip in three days saw Malinin seize the lead going into the free skating final as he bids for a second gold in his debut Games, having already sealed the team title with the United States.
On Friday, Malinin will bid to succeed Nathan Chen and win a ninth men’s singles title for the United States — and their third in the last five Games. “I trained with (Chen) when he was preparing for the Beijing Games and… it was just such an inspiration for me,” said Malinin. The 21-year-old from Virginia, the son of figure skaters from Uzbekistan who competed at the Olympics before settling in the United States, leads Japanese skater Yuma Kagiyama by a comfortable 5.09-point margin. France’s Adam Siao Him Fa is a further 0.52 behind Kagiyama, the Olympic silver singles medallist from Beijing.
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But all eyes will be on Malinin, a skater with such unbridled athleticism and talent that the experts say he is still a diamond in the rough. Four years on from his snub for the US Olympic team, Malinin has revolutionised his sport and is poised for gold — and stardom. Unbeaten over the past two years, Malinin came to Milan as the two-time reigning world champion and winner of the past three Grand Prix Finals.
However, skating over the Olympic rings imprinted on the Milan ice rink has “felt different than any other competition,” he said. “Sometimes it still overwhelms you,” the skater added. He wants to “really just try to calm things down and not get too excited, enjoy my time on the ice, and try as hard as I can.” Malinin’s technical prowess has set him apart — he is capable of landing multiple gravity-defying quadruple jumps, including quad-quad combinations.
Malinin teased journalists that he was “physically ready” to land a five-rotation jump. But so far, the skater who calls himself the “Quad God” has opted not to attempt to become the first skater to land the notoriously difficult quad axel — a four-and-a-half rotation jump before landing backwards on the opposite foot — at the Olympics. “And I’m so grateful to be surrounded by so many amazing athletes, so many different artists on the ice. I think it’s such an honour and really just such a piece of art because not a lot of people can do that. We really make it as beautiful as it can be.”
In the team event, he also landed the first legal backflip at an Olympics since US champion Terry Kubicka in 1976, after which it was banned for safety reasons. France’s Surya Bonaly performed the move illegally but successfully at Nagano 1998, and the backflip has now been made legal again. However, Malinin has become the first to land it at the Games on only one foot.
But it is the free skate where Malinin dominates, boasting a technical score that none of his rivals can match. Kagiyama outshone him in the team short programme in Milan, just as he had in December’s Grand Prix Final. Malinin was third going into the free skate at the Grand Prix final but still finished 30 points clear after hitting a record seven quads. “Anyone lucky enough to be in Milan, it will be one of those ‘I was there’ moments,” Robin Cousins, the figure skating gold medallist from the 1980 Winter Olympics, told BBC Sport. “It’s his Olympics to lose. He has grown into that slightly quirky style — it isn’t polished, and I don’t want it to be.”
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