Ilia Malinin might, in a way, be too good for figure skating.
Clearly, the U.S. Gold medal favorite for the Winter Olympics, affectionately known as the "Quad God," isn't actually too good, despite his exceptional talent. But his abilities have presented a problem to the sport.
The Associated Press recently analyzed what Malinin's accomplishments mean to the sport of figure skating as a whole, with writer Dave Skretta making a handful of key points.
It starts with his quad axel, which he finally landed for the first time in September 2022 in Lake Placid.
"By landing the quad axel, Malinin may have maxed out the boundaries of human performance," Skretta writes. "Most sports scientists agree that the speed and amplitude necessary for five-revolution jumps truly is impossible, leaving figure skating at a crossroads, where a dearth of innovation threatens to take the shine off a sport already fighting to maintain popularity."
The natural assumption would be that innovation takes hold.
The problem with that, though, is that the way a figure skater's program is judged is through a relatively rigid lens. It doesn't have a lot of room for funky stuff.
Malinin breaks out his crazy somersault move, the "raspberry twist," but doesn't actually get key points for it.
"The International Skating Union has rigid requirements for both short programs and free skates, and it rarely pays off to deviate too far from the script," Skretta writes. "Malinin might not get a lot of extra points for landing his raspberry twist, for example, since it is not one of the six standard figure skating jumps, but a failure to land it could cost him dearly."
As the Olympics arrive in Italy in February, all eyes on the ice will be on Malinin. But it's unlikely he'll do something he hasn't done before.
Without a change to the judging standards, Malinin is going to work a relatively predictable routine, with a few things only he can do, and potentially do it better than anyone else on the planet can do.
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