American Malinin ‘in shock’ at quad-axel powered Espoo gold
American teenager Ilia Malinin said he was ‘still in shock’ after conjuring up his fiendishly difficult quadruple axel to take gold in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Espoo on Saturday.
The reigning world junior champion’s reward was a ticket to the Grand Prix Final in Turin next month where he would be joined by Japan’s Mai Mihara who won women’s gold.
Malinin was lying second to Frenchman Kevin Aymoz, the surprise leader after the men’s short progamme on Friday with Japan’s Shun Sato in third.
But wooing the crowd and judges with his gravity-defying free skate programme he earned a score of 192.82 points for a 278.39 point winning total.
“I’m still in shock at how I was able to perform,” the teenage sensation said.
“I was a little mad after yesterday’s performance. I was really hoping that today I would forget about it and gain my confidence again, just to make sure that I am able to be in control of everything.”
The son of Russian-born Uzbekistani skater Tatiana Malinina, the 1999 Grand Prix Final and Four Continents champion, turned up in Finland after landing only the second quadruple axel ever performed in competition last month to become Skate America’s youngest-ever men’s champion.
Malinin performed the first ever quad axel in a lower level event in September.
Regarded as the most difficult jump in figure skating, double Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu attempted one unsuccessfully at the Beijing Olympics this year.
Skating to the soundtrack of ‘Euphoria’ by Labrinth on Saturday, Malinin had a hand down on the ice on his unique jump before hitting his first competitive quad flip.
Whilst not the most fluent in places, the technical complexity of his programme had earned its deserved reward.