The ‘Quad God’ Ilia Malinin on his other-worldly Worlds: ‘All that work was worth it’ – Exclusive
The newly minted world champion from the U.S. sits down to discuss his mindset attacking quads, the Olympic quad, the impact of his parents and how he’s still chasing his own style.
Figure Skating
At the conclusion of Ilia Malinin’s record-setting free skate at last week’s World Figure Skating Championships, there was a moment when the 19-year-old American's expression snapped back to reality.
His eyes widen as the tension leaves his face muscles. He almost appears to not know where he is as the Bell Centre crowd in Montreal roars around him.
He has just completed six quadruple jumps, including the quad Axel, the jump that he and he alone possesses, in a program aptly set to the theme music from the TV series Succession.
It’s a program in which, Malinin later told Olympics.com exclusively, he would take each of those quads – as well as his spins, choreography, step sequence and a few triple jumps, too – one element at a time.
It’s an old skating adage.
But glance again at Malinin’s face before he falls to the ground (for the first time all night, mind you) as the final chords of the music fade, and it’s easy to believe him.
The self-proclaimed “Quad God” had delivered the most out-of-this-world of skates.
And, it appeared, out-of-body, too.
“You just keep moving on to the next element and you try not to think back,” he says the next day in a one-on-one interview, admitting he had slept little on Saturday night (23 March).
He continues: “No matter how good it was or how bad it was, because that can mess you up.”
There was no looking back for Malinin on this night or, it appears, at all in men’s skating. The first-time world champion claimed the prize he had long sought, just as the Winter Olympic quadrennial ticks past the halfway point towards Milano Cortina 2026.
“[This Worlds] really showed that if I just trust myself and trust the training that I do, trust the muscle memory... that I can really achieve anything,” he says. “And that really gives me a lot of motivation to try and progress rapidly in the next few seasons before the Olympics.”
Ilia Malinin on a quest to discover his own style
“Progress rapidly” is a scary thought for the rest of the men’s field, including three-time world silver medallist Kagiyama Yuma, who was second to Malinin in Montreal by some 24 points (albeit with one fall).
"I saw Malinin's performance and what a huge accomplishment it was," he tells Olympics.com via an interpreter. "I realised the huge difference in what we have. In order to catch up with him, I need to not only train my jumps, but all my technical elements as perfect as I can. I need to achieve that quality. I need to practise a lot more."
But while Malinin has spoken at length about wanting to upgrade his artistry over the past two seasons, he says he wants to go deeper than that still, and would like to discover more of himself in his skating.
Who is the Quad God, exactly?
“For the next chapter of my skating... I want to try to find my style of skating,” he says. “I think that I still am kind of struggling to find that perfect [style], I guess for me, because when I look back at how I skate, sometimes I don't really enjoy watching myself in that artistry aspect.
“I think that's what I'll spend the next season [and the season following], before the Olympics, working on that, trying to find that sweet spot.”
While Malinin has always moved with confidence on the ice and off of it (e.g. “Quad God”), his triumph in Montreal was far from given, especially after he faltered to third place after the short program with a scratchy (by his standards) skate, where reigning two-time world champ Uno Shoma was brilliant.
But we all know what happened next. And that expression post-free skate confirmed: Even Ilia surprised Ilia.
“It almost seems unreal that it happened this early,” he says of winning world gold. “I thought that it would take maybe another year for me to get this gold medal. It just gave me the realisation of how much I really progressed in the past few seasons, that my progression was a lot more quicker than I thought.”
It's all in the (Malinin) family
As he glided off ice in Montreal, Malinin was greeted by his father, Roman Skorniakov, a two-time Olympic skater for Uzbekistan at Nagano 1998 and Salt Lake City 2002 alongside Ilia’s mother, Tatiana Malinina.
While Malinin has spent a significant amount of time in Southern California with coach Rafael Arutunian as well as with choreographer Shae-Lynn Bourne, he has always come back to his parents, who introduced him to the sport.
Skorniakov is always rinkside, while his mother stays home: She gets too nervous to watch in person and can’t even make the trips to events.
“They both went through this process of getting better and progressing in skating, going through competitions, feeling nervous,” Ilia explains. “So they're always aware of how I'm feeling and how to really prepare me to become better and better.
“I don't think I'd even be here at this level right now [without them],” he adds. “I'm just so glad that they're always helping me, supporting me and pushing me. It's just amazing and it really means a lot to me.”
While Malinina was not in Montreal, she called Ilia after his win. She was crying.
“She was crying happy tears,” he says. “And it was a really emotional thing for me [too]... it’s the first time I've ever seen her like that.”
Milano Cortina 2026: 'I want to be on top there'
“That very ending,” Malinin says of the finish of his free skate, “people have not seen me react like that. They always see me as that, like cool, calm, collected person. But I knew that all that work I put in really was worth it.”
Should Malinin and his team choose to tap into that moment, it could provide some insight as to what he wants his specific style to be moving forward. No, not every competition is a World championships, but every time he skates from now on, Malinin will face that kind of pressure: “And now please welcome, the world champion...”
“It feels great to be a world champion,” Malinin says at the open of our interview, continuing: “And something that I definitely dreamed of to accomplish in my career.”
But how does he see that moment when he snapped back to? Back to being Ilia versus the Quad God? Or are they one in the same now?
“It's hard to say what actually happened, but in my mind, I was thinking about all these years, all these seasons, all the progression of the effort that I put in,” he explains. “All the help from everyone, my parents, my coaches, my choreographers, Rafael, you know... you realise that this actually just happened because of that. “
The end result, he says, is also the realisation that while this is what they’ve been working towards, they also have greater things in mind, in particular when it comes to Milano Cortina 2026.
“I want to be at the top there as well,” he says. “[This] is helping me lead to a bigger goal... this really gives me that extra stride, that confidence... that sort of stepping stone to get to the next level.”
It took Malinin some 20 seconds to get up from the ice after he crumpled in celebration, spending a large part of it covering his face, unable to fully grasp what he had just done.
For a teenager who is still finding his way, still finding his style, it may have been hard to face head-on.
But he’s taking it all one at a time.
“That moment at the end, I just let it all happen, let it all out,” he says. “And I was so relieved that I just couldn't even hold myself up anymore.”