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Ilia Malinin didn’t execute the move that only he has ever produced in competition, the quadruple axel. At one point of his risqué routine, he faltered, lost balance and nearly fell hands first onto the ice.
Malinin, figure skating’s greatest performer at just 21, had the gold medal riding on his blades as America’s last skater in the teams event. In normal circumstances, a blunder of that magnitude would potentially cost his team the gold.
But Malinin did land no fewer than five varieties of quad in his routine, manoeuvres that involve the highest degrees of difficulty. “I broke physics,” he boasted to The Atlantic recently. “Now I think physics doesn’t apply to me.”
These ludicrous manoeuvres earned him and team America so many points that they more than compensated for his stumble, delivering the USA the team gold, ahead of Japan, whose premier skater Yumo Kagiyama had beaten Malinin the previous night in the “short” program. Italy were loudly celebrated bronze medallists.
Watching Malinin from the not-so-cheap seats was tennis GOAT Novak Djokovic, who hadn’t turned up to watch Georgia’s skater, or to listen to the thumping dance music that punctuated the breaks.
When Malinin did his now-customary backflip late in the winning routine, an astounded Djokovic puts his hands on head, as if to say, “what the heck.”
Novak Djokovic and his family watch the figure skating.Credit: Getty Images
Malinin, thrilled to learn about Djokovic’s reaction to the backflip, certainly sounded as if Djokovic had turned up for the express purpose of witnessing his routine. “That’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment,” he said in the mosh pit of his media interviews. “Seeing a famous tennis player watching my performance.”
The backflip did not carry any special bonus points from the judges. So why do it? “That’s just showing off,” explained one of the American journalists covering his every gyration.
It also takes a certain self-regard to use your own voice, like a slow rap track, over the loudspeakers as part of the music for a skating routine. Malinin’s music/spoken word package is titled “The Voice” and is a long way from John Farnham’s version.
Even Quad Gods can falter, or their nerves fail them, as Malinin’s did on Saturday when he scored 10 plus points fewer than Kagiyama, botched his “quad lutz” by insufficient rotation and jeopardised the American team gold medal.
Malinin celebrates with his gold medal.Credit: AP
His explanation for the rare sub-super performance in the short routines (men and women both compete as individuals in the teams event) was that this was his first outing in the Olympics.
“Honestly, I had to to sit around for a few hours wondering why that happened,” he said after his superior Sunday follow-up and score of 200.03, easily first among the men.
“I didn’t really understand the impact of the Olympic environment… I think I was more in shock of really just being at the Olympics for the first time.
“So I really just told myself, ’OK, now you’ve experienced it for the very first time so … now you can come with a different mindset, a different energy, really just take it as any other competition.”
Malinin’s post-podium comments can be read as a warning that he’s brushed off any Olympic debutant nerves and is ready to elevate himself – hovering higher over the rink – in the individual event.
He did not say so, but it’s reasonable to speculate that his reluctance to deploy the quad axel was that he couldn’t take such a risk as the No.1 skater on a team; if he fell over, the team would fall with him.
He won’t have that responsibility in the individual competition here. “I’ve got everything under control.”
The Winter Olympic Games will be broadcast on the 9Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.
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