The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy have come and gone, and Northern Virginia has spent the last two weeks cheering on FCPS hometown hero Ilia Malinin. The “Quad God” has captured national attention as the first figure skater to ever land a quad axel in competition, the hardest jump in figure skating.
According to the Olympics website, Ilia Malinin grew up in Vienna, Virginia, where he attended Marshall High School. He is the son of former Olympic figure skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov who represented Uzbekistan in 1998 and 2002. At age 17, Malinin was an alternate for the 2022 Beijing Olympics, according to the FCPS website.
Malinin has an impressive record, most recently winning the World Championships in 2023 and 2024. His first taste of success came in 2022, when he achieved silver in the US championships, achieved fourth in the World Championships, and won the World Junior title, all in the same year. In 2025, Malinin also broke his own record for the highest score in the Men Free Skate category in the world with a score of 238.24, a record that had, as per the International Skating Union, previously been held by fellow American figure skater Nathan Chen.
While Malinin is certainly known in the figure skating world for his astronomically high scores and his collection of world records and championships, he is most well known for being the first figure skater to land a quadruple axel. An axel is a type of figure skating jump that is largely considered to be the most difficult jump in the sport. ESPN reports that in this jump, a skater must jump forwards and land backwards, unlike most other jumps, where the skater jumps backwards. In 2022, Japanese skater Yuzuru Hanyu, who is largely considered to be one of the greatest skaters ever, attempted a quadruple axel at the Beijing Olympics, but he failed to land the jump. Later that year, in September 2022, Ilia Malinin became the first figure skater to successfully land the jump in competition. His quest to become the first skater to land the quad axel earned him the nickname the “Quad God.”
After a World Championship title in 2025, all of America waited with anticipation for the Winter Olympics, and Ilia Malinin’s debut on Olympic ice. Starting with the team event, Malinin did not disappoint, and wowed the judges and crowd with a stunning short program that included his other signature move, the backflip. Going into the final event of the team competition for figure skating, the United States and Japan were tied in points—Ilia Malinin delivered a spectacular program with six quadruple jumps, winning the US team the gold medal in the team event.
As the individual events approached, expectations were high for Malinin, as he was the overwhelming favorite to win another gold medal for the US. In his short program, Malinin won the top spot against the other gold medal favorite, Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama. However, he made multiple mistakes in his free skate, failing to complete his signature quadruple axels and falling on the ice twice. Ultimately, he finished his first Olympic games in 8th place, a shocking result for the world champion.
The Olympic Games ended on the 22nd with the closing ceremony, but figure skaters wrapped up their Olympics with an inspiring gala showcase of the best talents that the games had to offer. Ilia Malinin delivered a powerful performance to the song “Fear” by NF. Following the performance, in an interview reported by GMU, he stated, “This message and this program or song really spoke to me and really represented how I’ve been feeling the last year heading up to these Olympics. There’s been so much pressure, so much doubt, and everything around me—the noise, the media, the people, the environment—it’s been so overwhelming.” However surprising his Olympic results may be, this is not the end for the hometown hero, as he returns to the ISU World Championships in Prague next month, in hopes to defend his title as the best male figure skater in the world. As an alumnus of Marshall High School, Ilia Malinin highlights FCPS excellence with his accomplishments on the Olympic stage.
