Ilia Malinin, the world’s best figure skater and a favorite to win two gold medals at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, is also the only person to land a quadruple axel in competition.
The sport’s most difficult jump, the quad axel is daunting because it requires skaters to spin an extra half turn in the air, demanding exceptional technique and a measure of daring. Just a handful of skaters have even tried it.
Malinin, an American from Vienna, Virginia, not only has mastered the quad axel; he has made it a regular part of his programs, giving himself the Instagram screen name “Quadg0d.”
Malinin, who wears hockey laces on his skates as both a fashion statement and a way to handle the force of his jumps, says one of the biggest keys to landing a quad axel is committing to it fully on approach:
“If you go in 50 percent, like unsure, then you have a 50 percent [chance] that it’s going to go wonky.”
February 4, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. ESTToday at 6:00 a.m. EST
The axel is the only one of figure skating’s six jumps in which the skater enters going forward instead of backward. This is why axels have an extra half-turn.
Years of developing precise timing mixed with great core strength allow Malinin to make skating’s hardest jump look effortless.
About this story
The video was filmed in slow motion by The Post. Technique descriptions came from American figure skater Ting Cui.
Editing by Manuel Canales, Matt Rennie and Luis Velarde. Copy editing by Karl Hente.
