Background and career
Ilia Malinin (born December 2, 2004) is an American figure skater. He is a 2026 Olympic Games team event gold medalist, three-time World champion (2024, 2025, 2026), three-time Grand Prix Final champion (2023, 2024, 2025), seven-time Grand Prix gold medalist, four-time Challenger Series gold medalist, and four-time U.S. national champion (2023–26). At the junior level, Malinin is the 2022 World Junior champion and a two-time Junior Grand Prix gold medalist. He holds the current world junior record for the men's free skate and combined score, as well as the senior record for the men's free skate. Malinin is the only skater to successfully land a fully rotated quadruple Axel in international competition, accomplishing this feat at the 2022 CS U.S. International Classic and performing it multiple times since. In September 2022, he was named to Time magazine's Time 100 Next List. He is nicknamed "Quad God", a reference to his signature quadruple jumps.
Ilia Malinin was born on December 2, 2004, in Fairfax County, Virginia. He is the son of Tatiana Malinina, an Olympic skater who competed for Uzbekistan and was the 1999 Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final champion, 1999 Four Continents champion, and ten-time Uzbek national champion; and Roman Skorniakov, also an Olympic skater who competed for Russia before switching to Uzbekistan and was a seven-time Uzbek national champion. His younger sister Elli Beatrice Malinina also competes in figure skating. He was given his mother's surname (in the masculine inflection) because his parents were concerned that his father's surname would be too difficult to pronounce. He is fluent in Russian. His maternal grandfather, Valery Malinin, is a former competitor for the Soviet Union and works as a skating coach in Novosibirsk, Russia. Malinin attended George C. Marshall High School, where he graduated in 2023. His favorite subject while in high school was Physics. He currently attends George Mason University.
Malinin began skating at the age of six in 2011 under the tutelage of his parents in Reston, Virginia. When he was a child, he often preferred playing soccer to training in a cold arena, but his grandfather advised his parents to be patient, saying "he'll [gain] his triple jumps, [and then] you won't be able to drag him away.” He went on to become the 2016 U.S. national juvenile champion, the 2017 U.S. national intermediate champion, and the 2019 U.S. national novice bronze medalist. Internationally, Malinin is the 2018 Asian Open Trophy champion at the advanced novice level and the 2018 Golden Bear of Zagreb silver medalist.
Malinin made his junior international debut at the Philadelphia Summer International, where he won the gold medal. On the 2019 ISU Junior Grand Prix (JGP) circuit, he placed fourth at the JGP in the United States and seventh at the JGP in Italy. He was unable to compete at the 2020 U.S. Championships due to injury, but was awarded a berth to the 2020 World Junior Championships based on his early season results. At the World Junior Championships, he placed thirteenth in the short program and eighteenth in the free skate, finishing sixteenth overall.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 ISU Junior Grand Prix circuit, where Malinin would have competed, was cancelled. He was instead invited to compete at the 2020 Skate America, where he finished fifth after unveiling two new quadruple jumps – the toe loop and Salchow – that he had learned during lock-down. As a result of his placement, he was invited to participate in the Las Vegas Invitational, where he helped Team Tara defeat Team Johnny. He gained the nickname "Quad God" after adopting the Instagram handle "quadg0d" in late 2020, as inspiration for the quadruple jumps that he was striving to learn. Malinin was unable to compete at the 2021 U.S. Championships after missing the qualifying competition due to an ankle injury.
With the resumption of the Junior Grand Prix circuit, Malinin returned to international competition at the first edition of the 2021 JGP in France in Courchevel, winning the gold medal despite errors on both of his attempted quadruple jumps in his free skate. He called it "a struggle since I haven't competed in a year, but I think now that I'm back, things are starting going back to normal." At his second event, the 2021 JGP in Austria in Linz, Malinin entered as one of the favorites for the gold medal and won with new personal bests in all segments. He landed a quadruple Salchow successfully in the free skate, although he made an error attempting a quadruple toe loop. With two gold medals, he qualified for the 2021 Junior Grand Prix Final. However, the event was later cancelled due to travel restrictions to Japan prompted by the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. Malinin finished the season at the 2022 World Junior Championships, which was delayed from early March to mid-April and relocated from Bulgaria to Estonia. He entered the event as the favorite for the gold medal based on his strong season. In the short program, he set a new junior world record of 88.99. He won the free skate as well, setting junior world records for that segment and for total score, winning the gold medal by a margin of almost 42 points.
