Ilia Malinin, the “quadg0d,” seems heaven-sent for U.S. figure skating

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Ilia Malinin, the “quadg0d,” seems heaven-sent for U.S. figure skating

When Ilia Malinin started skating, at age 6, the rink was basically a day care center for him.

His parents, Tatyana Malinina and Roman Skorniyakov, each a two-time figure skating Olympian for Uzbekistan, both were coaching, and it was both easier and less expensive to have their son with them after school at the SkateQuest facility in Reston, Virginia.

“At the beginning, we didn’t take it seriously,” Malinina said. “We just took him to where we were working, and he was skating there.”

That changed three years later.

With minimal preparation, skating just three times a week, Malinin qualified for the 2015 U.S. Championships in the juvenile division when he was just 9 years old. He finished ninth.

Suitably impressed, Malinin and Skorniyakov started having him skate under their tutelage five times a week. In 2016, just after his 11th birthday, he became national juvenile champion.

Many others soon would be as captivated as his parents by their son’s nascent talent.

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At upcoming ISU congress, results of important age debates may beg bigger questions about sport's future

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At upcoming ISU congress, results of important age debates may beg bigger questions about sport's future

How young is too young to compete at the elite level in figure skating?

And how old is too old to hold elective office in the sport’s international federation?

Will the answer to either question do anything to arrest the decline in the sport’s appeal, especially in North America and Europe (other than in Russia, now an international sports pariah for its unprovoked and horrific aggression in Ukraine)?

Those are some of the questions the International Skating Union will debate at its (normally) biennial congress this June in Thailand.

While the Congress agenda will not be finalized and made public until the end of April, I have obtained copies of the agenda in its provisional form.

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Kamila Valieva remains eligible to compete at worlds next month. Will she?

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Kamila Valieva remains eligible to compete at worlds next month. Will she?

As of now, Kamila Valieva is eligible to compete at the World Figure Skating Championships in late March.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport decision that allowed Valieva to compete at the 2022 Winter Olympics despite her ongoing doping case remains in force for all events, according to Travis Tygart, chief executive of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

“While she is free to compete in all competitions, she could voluntarily step aside,” Tygart said in a text message. “Or WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) and the Russians should expedite her case to ensure a fair outcome prior to the World Championships and to avoid another media firestorm that neither she nor her competitors should have to endure.”

Even expedited action might not resolve Valieva’s case before Monday’s athlete entry deadline for the World Championships in Montpellier, France. The competition begins March 23.

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Brilliance at nationals unsurprisingly not enough to earn Ilia Malinin an Olympic spot

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Brilliance at nationals unsurprisingly not enough to earn Ilia Malinin an Olympic spot

Nathan Chen won his sixth straight national figure skating championship Sunday, a feat unmatched since Dick Button won his sixth of seven straight in 1951.

Ilia Malinin finished second, but he upstaged Chen and everyone else in the competition, both in the short program and the free skate.

That Malinin’s two stunning performances still did not earn the 17-year-old a place on the U.S. team for next month’s Winter Olympics in Beijing was not really surprising, given selection criteria that broadly favored results in senior level events the past two seasons.

In a decision complicated by the free skate performances in Nashville, the U.S. Figure Skating selection committee gave the three men’s singles spots to Chen, Vincent Zhou and Jason Brown.

“I think all three of us have really shown over the past two years why we deserve this spot,” Chen said.

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Keeping promise to herself, figure skater Karen Chen looks for an Olympic redo

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Keeping promise to herself, figure skater Karen Chen looks for an Olympic redo

Karen Chen left the 2018 Winter Olympics so disappointed over the subpar performances that left her in 11th place that she immediately vowed to try again.

“When I got off the ice, I remember telling myself, `You’ve got to go for another four years. This was not your dream,’” Chen said in a recent media conference.

Yet a season later, after battling an injury that kept her out of all but one minor competition, Chen no longer was so sure.

She had been admitted to Cornell University, which would mean both training far from her coaching team in Colorado Springs and chasing around near the college to find ice time. She had struggled with boot-related foot problems for years. She had accomplished the original part of her dream, which was simply making the Olympics.

Before her first semester of college, Chen thought about calling it a competitive career at age 19. She had a family meeting to discuss the issue and wound up deciding both to give it another go and also that she wanted to be a full-time student at the Ithaca, New York, school.

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