Ilia Malinin on the pursuit of perfection
CBSN
The quad axel is the most difficult skill ever performed in figure skating – and the only person in the world who has ever landed one in competition is Ilia Malinin. If you haven't heard his name before, you will soon. In:
The quad axel is the most difficult skill ever performed in figure skating – and the only person in the world who has ever landed one in competition is Ilia Malinin. If you haven't heard his name before, you will soon.
The 21-year-old, who recently won his fourth straight national title, is the heavy gold medal favorite for this year's Olympics, because he has mastered the "quad" – a jump with four revolutions in the air.
Asked how he was able to achieve that, Malinin laughed, "The human body can do amazing things. And I guess I'm one of them!"
There are six types of jumps in figure skating. The axel is the hardest, because it's the only one where the skater starts off facing forward, meaning it has an extra half-rotation.
Malinin's nickname? "Quad God." The name came about when he tried changing his Instagram handle: "I was like, 'Oh, I landed a quad? Quad God, there it is, okay, let's put it in,'" he said. "And from there everyone's like, 'Why'd you name yourself Quad God? You only have one quad." And I'm like, 'Well, now that I think about it, maybe I should try to land all of them to get the Quad God status.'"
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This story originally aired on Nov. 30, 2024. It was updated on Jan. 31, 2026. In:
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