CERO Magazine
In the weeks leading up to this winter’s Milano-Cortina Olympics, the figure skater Ilia Malinin burst onto the international stage with verve—undefeated in elite competition for over two years, his powerhouse performances in the team event would be instrumental in cinching the gold for the United States. The nonstop flurry of press appearances appeared to barely faze him; if anything, he seemed to gain more momentum as his profile grew over the brief span of weeks. Only after his eighth-place finish in the individual competition—in which Malinin still embodied sportsmanship, gracefully supporting his competitors’ (particularly Kazakh Mikhail Shaidarov’s stunning come-from-behind victory) successes—did he begin to limit his media responsibilities to take time to reflect with the support of other Olympians.
The 2026 Olympics were, by any metric, a crucible for Malinin. Figure skating is indubitably the marquee event for the Winter Games, and Malinin stands firmly at the top of the sport: hundreds of global publications emblazoned headlines with his name, and the International Olympic Committee and its broadcasting partners inundated feeds with his image and videos of his superlative technical feats. His career already boasts an extensive list of firsts and milestones that have reshaped the possibilities of his sport: Malinin is the first and only skater to land a quadruple axel in international competition and he shattered convention by landing seven clean quads in one performance at last December’s Grand Prix Final in Japan. He holds three consecutive World Championship gold medals and three world records; in Milan, he was the first competitor to legally perform a backflip at the Olympics—and landed it on one foot. As a result, the resounding global consensus well before he arrived in Milan was that the individual gold medal was the Quad God’s to lose.
Read full article here: https://www.ceromagazine.com/articles/ilia-malinin-quad-god-figure-skater-milano-cortina-winter-olympics-athlete-interview
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