Ilia Malinin

Ilia Malinin
Malinin at 2019 JGP United States
Personal information
Country represented	United States
Born	(2004-12-02) December 2, 2004 (age 17) Fairfax, Virginia
Home town	Vienna, Virginia
Height	1.68 m (5 ft 6 in)
Coach	Tatiana Malinina Roman Skorniakov Rafael Arutyunyan
Former coach	Irina Romanova
Choreographer	Nadezhda Kanaeva
Former choreographer	Irina Romanova Viktor Pfeifer Tatiana Malinina
Skating club	Washington FSC
Training locations	Reston, Virginia Irvine, California
Began skating	2011
ISU personal best scores
Combined total	245.35 2021 JGP Austria
Short program	81.31 2021 JGP Austria
Free skate	164.04 2021 JGP Austria

Ilia Malinin (born December 2, 2004) is an American figure skater. He is the 2021 CS Cup of Austria bronze medalist and 2022 U.S. national silver medalist. On the junior level, he is the 2021 JGP France I champion and the 2021 JGP Austria champion. He competed in the final segment at the 2020 World Junior Championships.

Personal life[]

Malinin was born on December 2, 2004, in Fairfax, Virginia. He is the son of Russian-born Uzbekistani singles skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov,^[1] and has a younger sister named Liza, born in 2014. He is fluent in Russian and English.^[2] As of 2021, Malinin attends George C. Marshall High School.^[1]

Malinin admires his mother's skating, as well as Evgeni Plushenko, Nathan Chen, and Mikhail Kolyada.^[2] He also looks up to Yuzuru Hanyu.^[3]

Career[]

Early career[]

Malinin began skating in 2010 under the tutelage of his parents, who were both Olympic skaters for Uzbekistan. He is the 2016 U.S. national juvenile champion, the 2017 U.S. national intermediate champion, and the 2019 U.S. national novice bronze medalist; he did not qualify for the 2018 U.S. Championships. Internationally on the advanced novice level, Malinin is the 2018 Asian Open Trophy champion and the 2018 Golden Bear silver medalist.^[1]

2019–2020 season[]

Malinin made his junior international debut at the Philadelphia Summer International, winning gold ahead of U.S. teammate Nicholas Hsieh and Darian Kaptich of Australia. On the 2019–20 ISU Junior Grand Prix, he placed fourth at JGP United States and seventh at JGP Italy. Malinin 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.^[2] At the World Junior Championships, he was 13th in the short program and 18th in the free skating to finish 16th overall.

2020–2021 season[]

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020–21 ISU Junior Grand Prix, where Malinin would have competed, was cancelled. He was instead invited to 2020 Skate America after the Grand Prix series was converted to semi-domestic events. Malinin placed a surprise fifth at Skate America after unveiling two new quadruple jumps – toe loop and Salchow – that he learned during lockdown.^[4] As a result of his placement, he was invited to participate in the Las Vegas Invitational, where he helped Team Tara defeat Team Johnny.^[5] Malinin was unable to compete at the 2021 U.S. Championships after missing the qualifying competition with an injury.

2021–2022 season[]

With the resumption of the Junior Grand Prix, Malinin returned to international competition at the first edition of the 2021 JGP France in Courchevel, winning the gold medal despite making errors on both of his attempted quadruple jumps in the 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."^[6] At his second event, the 2021 JGP Austria in Linz, Malinin entered as one of the favourites for the gold medal, and won with new personal bests in all segments. He landed a quad Salchow successfully in the free skate, while making an error on his quad toe loop attempt. With two gold medals, he qualified to the Junior Grand Prix Final.^[7] However, the Final would later be cancelled due to travel restrictions prompted by the Omicron variant.^[8]

Returning to the senior level at the 2021 CS Cup of Austria in November, he placed thirteenth in the short program but rallied with a second-place free skate to take the bronze medal.^[9]

Competing at the 2022 U.S. Championships with hopes of making the American Olympic team, Malinin placed third in the short program. Second in the free skate with four quadruple jumps landed, Malinin won the silver medal, a result he said surprised him: "I definitely wasn’t expecting to skate this good and especially place second."^[10] Malinin's placement resulted that, per qualification criteria, the third berth on the Olympic team was to be decided between him and pewter medalist Jason Brown. Ultimately the committee chose the veteran Brown, a result that attracted some controversy.^[11] Malinin was instead assigned to make his World Championship debut later in the year. Brown praised him, saying "U.S. figure skating is so lucky to have such a bright future with Ilia."^[12]

Programs[]

Competitive highlights[]

GP: Grand Prix; JGP: ISU Junior Grand Prix. Pewter medals (4th place) awarded only at U.S. national, sectional, and regional events.

Pre-international debut[]

Detailed results[]

ISU Personal best in bold.

Senior results[]

Junior results[]

References[]

External links[]

• Ilia MALININ at the International Skating Union
• Ilia Malinin at U.S. Figure Skating
• Ilia Malinin on Instagram