At the end of Saturday's free skate, Ilya Marinin stretched out on the ice, closed his eyes and took it all in. The man known as the “Quad God'' had just performed a series of quadruple jumps, including a quad axel and a jump. He even pulled off a backflip that no one had ever landed before, and in his typically spectacular style.
There were falls and a few other mistakes in the routine, but it didn't matter. Up-and-coming American Marinin, who turned 20 on Monday, handily defeated Japanese rival Yuma Kagiyama to win the men's singles at the Grand Prix Final, finishing 2024 undefeated and further cementing his status as an upcoming superstar. Made it firm.
Perhaps the only thing that doesn't work out the way Marinin had hoped is that the Olympics are 14 months away instead of two.
Since the 2022 Beijing Games, Marin has become a rising force in men's figure skating, and Saturday's victory caps off a perfect calendar year that includes a world championship gold medal and puts him in the sport's shoes with just over a year until the 2026 Beijing Games. It was definitely number 1. The Olympics begin in Milan.
Marinin started Friday with an impressive short program, opening up a nearly 12-point lead over Kagiyama, the world silver medalist behind Marinin. In Saturday's free skate, Malinin executed a series of quads: axel, lutz, salchow, toe loop, loop, flip, and then a crowd-pleasing backflip near the end to win another major title. His total score was 292.12 points, exceeding Kagiyama's 281.78 points. Japan's Shun Sato took third place with 270.82 points.
“I had this idea and this goal that I wanted to achieve here, and I was able to blow it out of the park,” Malinin said at the arena after the win.
It's a familiar sound to Ilia Marin. 🇺🇸
He successfully defends and stands on top of the podium #GPFigure title. 🥇 pic.twitter.com/QkhbfrWP8f
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) December 7, 2024
The Grand Prix Final is the culmination of figure skating's annual Grand Prix series, in which only the top six skaters or pairs in each discipline are invited. This is one of the most prestigious global titles in the sport, after the Olympic Games and World Championships.
The victory gave the United States three titles and capped off a stellar weekend in Grenoble, France. Early Saturday morning, Amber Glenn won the women's competition, while two-time world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates won for the second year in a row in ice dancing. The Americans also won one gold medal and two silver medals in the junior competition.
Marin was born and raised in Virginia. His parents, Roman Skolniakov and Tatyana Marinina, are former Olympic figure skaters of Russian and Uzbek descent. The two immigrated to the United States and lived in Vienna, Virginia, where Malinin learned to skate at a facility where his parents coached. He attends George Mason University.
Had it not been for the decision to remove him from the U.S. national team in Beijing in 2022, Malinin might already have become a household name to casual Olympic fans.
American Ilya Marin, who turned 20 on Monday, has risen to the top of men's figure skating and enters 2025 as the sport's undisputed No. 1. (Laurent Cipriani/AP)
At that year's U.S. Championships, held a month before the Olympics, Marin, who had just turned 18, placed a surprising second behind Nathan Chen and made a strong case for selection to the team. However, the selection committee did not have to choose based on results alone, instead focusing on experience and selecting former Olympians Vincent Zhou and Jason Brown (3rd and 4th place athletes at the All-Japan Championships), who will be competing in Beijing. Joining Chen, Marin became number one. alternately.
Things went well for the United States – they won the team gold medal after Russian skater Kamila Valieva was disqualified and had her points deducted – but Marinin will have to wait for her Olympic debut.
Since then, he has skyrocketed to the top of the sport. After the Olympics, the American team sent Marinin to the 2022 World Championships, where he finished in ninth place. After that, he participated in the World Junior Championships and won the gold medal for his first major victory.
From there he competed full time on the senior circuit. In the 2022-23 season, he won a gold medal at the U.S. Championships, a bronze medal at the World Championships and Grand Prix Final, and successfully completed the quad axel for the first time. Now in 2024, he has an unbeatable record at the World Championships, Grand Prix Finals, and U.S. Championships, winning gold medals in all of them.
Before his arrows rose up the rankings, Marinin attracted attention with unprecedented actions. Until September 15, 2022, no figure skater had ever landed a fully rotated quadruple axel. The full four revolutions in the air from an axel jump are considered the most difficult in the sport, and because you start facing forward, you need an additional half revolution to complete. .
Things changed when Malinin let it loose at an event in Lake Placid, New York.
history. I made it🤯
17-year-old Ilya Marin 🇺🇸 becomes the first figure skater to land a quadruple axel in competition.
Full text ➡️ https://t.co/cIHBkGIZFH#figure skatingpic.twitter.com/jysyCrF0lr
— Olympic Games (@Olympics) September 15, 2022
He has since repeated the feat several times, earning him the nickname “Quadg0d” on Instagram in recognition of his feat. He said in an interview that he is considering attempting a quintuple version of the jump.
It's his signature move, but it's far from his range of skill. Marin's exercise habits have produced huge scores, including a world record in the free skate at this year's world championships. After the ban on backflips, which had been in place since 1977, was lifted earlier this year, he wasted no time in completing a backflip at a competition in October.
Can we quickly talk about Ilia Marin casually doing backflips in her program? 🫨 #skateamerica pic.twitter.com/vcafwJn2yZ
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) October 21, 2024
Marinin finished 2024 with seven wins out of seven tournaments. He has not finished in the top three in any event since the 2022 World Championships, where he missed the Beijing Games. And the next big event will be on his home ground. The 2025 World Championships will be held in Boston from March 23rd to 30th.
There's still a year of competition before the Olympics start in Milan in February 2026, and players like Kagiyama and France's Adam Hsiao Him Hua (last year's World Championship bronze medalist who missed this Grand Prix Final due to injury) The time will come when another top candidate will chase Marinin. under. But the American enters 2025 as the clear No. 1 in the sport.
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(Photo: Julie Codrun/International Skating Federation via Getty Images)
