The 17-year-old wunderkind, and heir apparent to Olympic champion Nathan Chen among American figure skaters, successfully landed the first quad axel in competition. There was a small crowd in the mostly empty arena for the U.S. Classic in Lake Placid. The final and most difficult of the quadruple jumps had finally been conquered. It felt great." When I'm practicing it, it's easy for me to figure out how to get the right timing and everything to have it be a good attempt. Nerves and pressure can get in the way of that, so it's not a good idea to do it in competition. I have to treat it like I am at home. HISTORY HAS BEEN MADE❗️ Ilia Malinin lands the first quad Axel in history 🤯 at the #USIntlClasic pic.twitter.com/rppq73tQ5v
Chen, who won the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, has taken a break from the sport. Yuzuru Hanyu tried to land it at the Winter Olympics.
There had been brief snippets of video on social media over the past six months that indicated it was a work in progress, as well as some reports from his training camp that he had landed the quad axel.
The flip, toe flip, lutz, salchow, loops and toe loop are all difficult to perform because skaters face forward when entering the jump. Even the triple axel is difficult for women and men.
I had an idea to try it for a bit. "March or April was when I started working on the technique and trying to improve it." Hanyu encouraged me to try it here.
When he knew that he would be fresh, he put the jump first in his free skate. According to the judging panel, the base value of 12.50 is more than any other jump and they thought it was clean.
"This is the craziest thing I've ever seen on the ice," said a member of the Olympic team.
His free skate score was 185.44 points and his total score was 257.28 points. Kevin Aymoz of France was second with 236.17 points, followed by Camden Pulkinen of the US.
The next big thing in American figure skating is a skater who was born in Virginia to Russians. He won the Junior Grand Prix in France and Austria and was second to Chen at the U.S. Championships.
He would have been a lock for the team if that had happened. The U.S. Figure Skaters used a number of factors in making their decision and bypassed him.
Chen won gold in record time. The Americans won a silver medal in the team competition, which could still be upgraded to gold if the Russians are found guilty of using banned substances.
Malinin was working away from the attention on a jump that some thought impossible.
The U.S. Classic is an event that doesn't get a lot of attention from the Grand Prix events. There is a field that includes an Olympian and a two-time runner-up at the world championship.
The Grand Prix will be held in Espoo, Finn.
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