Ilia Malinin Is Good As Hell At Ice Skating
Ilia Malinin is 19 and just won the world championship title of international ice skating or something by being an absolute wizard on ice skates. I’ve only been on ice skates 6 or 7 times in my life and I’m getting better, but I’m still kinda wobbly, so don’t take my word for it. Just watch him do all sorts of triple cows lutz axles better than anyone’s ever done it. My favorite part is when he does the two twisty jumps in a row, which he does at least 3 different times. Imagine being half this good at anything, let alone something as difficult as jumping in circles WITH RAZOR BLADES SCREWED TO YOUR DOC MARTENS.
Malinin landed a quadruple Axel, quad Lutz, quad loop, quad Salchow, another quad Lutz and a quad toe loop, then finished his four-minute skate with a a triple Lutz-triple Axel finale.
I don’t live too far from Salem, and they still put people on trial for this kind of sorcery there.
Discussion 9 comments
WOW. There's this point in the routine when he is clearly past the toughest spins and *knows* he's nailed it so far, and his expressions and energy just catch fire. 🔥
I loved that part, too!
It's not often that you can actively share in a stranger's joy, but I watched this about 5 times over the last few days and I genuinely felt euphoric as I marveled at this kid just nailing it.
Yep, 107% - what a performance! The crowd roar towards the end really brings it home
Has anyone found a version of the video that is accessible from outside the US?
This works for me in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SmT8DigLCE
Thanks Mark!
I never ice skated in my life. I can appreciate the beauty and the difficulty of what he does, but I can’t really tell the difference between an excellent performance (like, there’s only 3-4 people in the world that can do this) and an exceptional performance (as in, this has never been done before and won’t be topped for a while) . What sells it for me is the reaction of the judges. They are experts in the field, and they are truly in awe of what he did. Fantastic.
I was curious about his background, and learned that both his parents were Olympic ice skaters. Seems like we're just coming up on the first large crop of athletes whose mothers were professionals (Zoe and Elynor Backstedt in women's cycling come to mind; their father Magnus is a more recognizable name but their mum Megan Hughes was British national champ in the 1990s.) It's going to be amazing to watch across all sports.
As an aside, I'm very much enjoy the spate of both known and obscure human feats that Aaron is publishing this week as a change of pace.
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