MILAN — Ilia Malinin has arrived at the doorstep of history at the Winter Olympics. On Friday night, he is expected to cement his place in the pantheon of Winter Olympic stars if he wins his second gold medal at these Games, this one in the men’s individual event.
Expectations of winning everything, every time have followed the 21-year-old self-proclaimed “Quad God” for several years now, so there’s nothing new about any of this. He is just so good, but in such a different kind of way.
‘Of course it’s the quads,’ said Brian Boitano, 1988 Olympic gold medalist and co-host of USA TODAY Sports’ Milan Magic podcast. ‘But it’s more than that. It’s his ability to change things up, how he picks and chooses which elements and things he does in the program, how he made his program simpler at the national championships and then can rev it up to possibly do seven quads Friday. The fact that he can switch things up adds another layer to how special he is. It’s really hard to do that.”
Boitano, known as a terrific jumper in his day, has found a unique way to measure Malinin’s greatness. ‘Every jump I did as a triple, he has added a whole rotation onto every thing that I did and turned it into a quad.”
Figure skating always is a two-act show: there are the jumps and athletic moves, then there is the artistry. And there, Boitano said, Malinin’s innovative side shines as well.
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‘For a very young man who still will develop artistically, he adds his own twist to everything, like how he does the raspberry twist and the backflip,’ Boitano said. ‘He adds this entertainment quality to everything but he does it in a really calm manner. He’s the right amount of cocky, which is great because he’s not pretentious. He’s appreciative of his competitors.
‘So all of these elements about him go into who is as a person, and I think that’s why he’s such a good champion because he’s really an all-around package.’
Malinin is a talkative person. He is happy to linger with reporters, ponder answers, think about things, almost always smiling while he does. He delights in analysis.
‘Definitely I am a person who is striving to improve in everything and to really try to be the best version of themself that I can be, whether that be athletically, physically, mentally, emotionally,” he said last month after winning his fourth consecutive U.S. championship. “Every aspect that I see myself in, I want to be the best at and really just master everything I can, whether that be experiences, life skills, any skills, really. I like to try new things so it’s kind of part of my personality.”
When asked what it’s like to really have no rival, he demurs. ‘I do have a rival and that is my inner self. That’s my rival. My rival is I’m always competing against myself. Being a perfectionist is kind of like that rival.”
Malinin also has something else going for him: skating genes. He possesses the perfect body to jump, lean and lithe. No wonder he entered the family business. His mother, Tatiana Malinina, competed at 10 consecutive world figure skating championships for Uzbekistan. Most significantly, she competed at two Olympics and finished eighth at the 1998 Games in Nagano, the competition in which Tara Lipinski won the gold medal and Michelle Kwan the silver.
Malinin’s father, Roman Skorniakov, represented Uzbekistan at the same two Olympics, 1998 and 2002, finishing 19th both times. They were married in 2000 and became skating coaches in the United States, moving to the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., where, in December 2004, Ilia was born. He took the Russian masculine form of his mother’s last name because his parents were concerned that Skorniakov was too difficult to pronounce.
Malinin’s father is in Milan coaching his son, while his mother is back home in Northern Virginia, doing her job coaching other skaters while watching from afar. There’s a reason for this.
Word was mom gets too nervous watching her son. But no. ‘Honestly, the real reason is I get nervous when she comes,’ he said. ‘Not because of her but because I get more nervous for her getting nervous for me.’
Malinin said he hasn’t spoken with his mother at all since he came to Milan. ‘She doesn’t want to give me extra stress, so she wants me to handle it on my own, because she trusts me with that,” he said. ‘I just want to make sure that after the free program (Friday night), I get to have a chat with her and see her reaction.”
Then he smiled sheepishly.
‘I’m sure she’s going to give me some trouble on that team short program,” he said, referring to his shaky performance Saturday night. ‘But that’s a mom, so I love her for that.’
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