Ilia Malinin Fan Thread!

[Sylvia]

Ted Barton recorded video interviews with Ilia and his parents and they are being aired periodically during ice resurfacings in the JGP livestreams:

Uploaded by the Ilia Society fan account:

Ilia Malinin Daily on Instagram: "In an interview last week with Ted Barton, Ilia shared about a couple of aspects and stories in his skating career: • About his World title and how it changed his life • On how he started skating and when he realized

72 likes, 0 comments - theiliasociety on October 3, 2024: "In an interview last week with Ted Barton, Ilia shared about a couple of aspects and stories in his skating career: • About his World title and how it changed his life • On how he started skating and when he realized his potential •...

www.instagram.com

Ilia Malinin Daily on Instagram: "ISU recently aired an interview of Ted Barton with Ilia's parents, Tatyana Malinina and Roman Skornyakov during JGP Ankara this week! Ilia parents talking about • Why they initially didn't want to get him into skat

66 likes, 0 comments - theiliasociety on September 20, 2024: "ISU recently aired an interview of Ted Barton with Ilia's parents, Tatyana Malinina and Roman Skornyakov during JGP Ankara this week! Ilia parents talking about • Why they initially didn't want to get him into skating, and his early...

www.instagram.com

ISU should upload these interviews on their YT account, IMO.

 

[ice coverage]

Ted Barton recorded video interviews with Ilia and his parents and they are being aired periodically during ice resurfacings in the JGP livestreams:

...

ISU should upload these interviews on their YT account, IMO.

Update: Today ISU YouTube channel did upload the recent Ted Barton interview with Ilia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3YZEWwVJcc (9:59)​

Agree that ISU should upload Ted's interview with Ilia's parents/coaches too.

ETA:​

Today was Ilia's media call before Skate America, reported by Figure Skaters Online:​

https://x.com/fsonline/status/1843793078945230972 (thread of seven tweets)​

 

[cailuj365]

Wait, Ilia's parents found the Falling In Reverse music?! Amazing taste, Roman and Tatiana.

 

[Karen-W]

Good morning! Just gonna leave this here...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1845730359100784917

I mean...

 

[On My Own]

Toe loop take off is less than ideal.

Instead of training this, he could try to land the jump with more speed and flow and then try tacking a toe loop on.

 

[skateboy]

Toe loop take off is less than ideal.

Instead of training this, he could try to land the jump with more speed and flow and then try tacking a toe loop on.

Gotta start somewhere, and this is practice.

I admire Ilia for going after something no one has ever done. Most people don't bother.

 

[Karen-W]

Toe loop take off is less than ideal.

Instead of training this, he could try to land the jump with more speed and flow and then try tacking a toe loop on.

I mean, was it just 2 years ago that people were nitpicking about his 4a being on the q or even <, and yet here we are with the 4a so solid he's comfortable with attempting to add a 3t onto it?

 

[skatfan]

Toe loop take off is less than ideal.

Instead of training this, he could try to land the jump with more speed and flow and then try tacking a toe loop on.

Nah, this is a perfect way for him to get in the heads of his competitors. Really unlikely to throw this now, but they'll know he could think about it at the end of the season.

 

[On My Own]

I doubt he needs a 4A+3T to get into the heads of his competitors, his rather inflated GOE and PCS in addition to his BV at competitions probably already do that.

I am happy for him to go for whatever jumps he wants, but to put it mildly, it's not all that pleasant to look at a lot of what he's done this past year and a half. Yes, he's improved, and yes I'd rather see a jumper than an "artist" (much prefer him to Kagiyama frankly, and I don't really know what I'm supposed to be looking at when it comes to Siao Him Fa). But no, neither of those reasons is enough to justify the kind of scores he gets.

 

[cailuj365]

Lol, I mean, if we're gonna nit-pick about quad axel combos, I'll say that I preferred his 4T-4A sequence or his 4A-Eu-3F. Ilia does a lot of things for fun in practice that don't really make it to his program.

Actually, more than the 4A-3T, I thought the big reveal was that he was training the 4S-3A in place of the 3Lz-3A or 3F-3A at the end of the program with the music on. A 7-quad program is incoming, folks.

ETA: The 4S-3A makes me nervous though. Since he turned senior and introduced the 3Lz or 3F-3A sequence, has he ever missed it? I can't think of a time that he has. It's like an instant 15+ points. And when his previous quad 3-jump combo goes awry, he can tack on the 3T at the end. Replacing it with 4S-3A is a lot more risk. But I guess that's Ilia...

 

[Sylvia]

Here’s a link to watch TV Asahi’s 5-minute feature on Ilia with English subtitles added (he was filmed at his home rink landing 6 different quads in practice, including the 4A+3T clip that was posted yesterday): https://x.com/theiliasociety/status/1845752692452524059

 

[cailuj365]

According to this article, Ilia was planning to skate to Für Elise before he/his parents found "I'm Not a Vampire." I would not have expected that either!

https://olympics.com/en/news/ilia-malinin-skating-2024-music-focus-improvements-interview

 

[Karen-W]

So, Ilia said in today's SP press conference that the plan at the moment is to introduce the quint NEXT season and that it's currently "looking very promising" - he did not give any further details on which jump he's attempting or whether he's landed one without the harness.

 

[DreamSkates]

So, Ilia said in today's SP press conference that the plan at the moment is to introduce the quint NEXT season and that it's currently "looking very promising" - he did not give any further details on which jump he's attempting or whether he's landed one without the harness.

I just hope he doesn’t push too much and get injured and miss the Olympics. But he seems to not be rushing putting a quint in a program this year so that’s encouraging.

 

[DreamSkates]

BTW I love his new long program and look forward to seeing how this develops over the season. Love that he has his own style!

 

[On My Own]

Lol, I mean, if we're gonna nit-pick about quad axel combos, I'll say that I preferred his 4T-4A sequence or his 4A-Eu-3F. Ilia does a lot of things for fun in practice that don't really make it to his program.

Eh, it's not nitpicking. Some people have indeed noticed his toe loop has become less perfect. It used to be great, I even said that before somewhere on this website. But maybe because of training combos like these, or maybe because he's hinted at training quints, the timing seems worse, and the jump looks worse, and it seems it's seeped into his quad as well as the combo +3Ts.

Not worth a downgrade or anything, but deserves lower GOE, IMO anyway. And I don't expect it to be cleaned up if he keeps training all these crazed combos.

To keep it worthy of the fan thread: I think the LP choreography is his best so far.

 

[cailuj365]

Eh, it's not nitpicking. Some people have indeed noticed his toe loop has become less perfect. It used to be great, I even said that before somewhere on this website. But maybe because of training combos like these, or maybe because he's hinted at training quints, the timing seems worse, and the jump looks worse, and it seems it's seeped into his quad as well as the combo +3Ts.

Not worth a downgrade or anything, but deserves lower GOE, IMO anyway. And I don't expect it to be cleaned up if he keeps training all these crazed combos.

To keep it worthy of the fan thread: I think the LP choreography is his best so far.

I'm not sure if I can say that his 4T has become less perfect because he does it so rarely now in competition. Last year, all of the solo 4T in his SP were really quite nice, but as he has now replaced it with the 4F, we only see his 4T in the last half of the LP where it's in combination with the 3T. His stamina and the setup and flow that he has with that combination are going to be very different. His +3Ts were never stellar to begin with, but I actually think his 4Lz-3T looks improved so far compared to last year.

I think this is going to be a growing/adjustment season for Ilia. He has a lot of new expectations that he's having to manage, and he's training new layouts and combinations and replacing very reliable jumps with more high-risk jumps for him and using harder entries. Just an insane amount of difficulty and risk that, to be honest, he does not really need and I would rather he spend his time on other things (personally, I'm very anti-quint), but it did sound like he was kind of using this season to see what works and what doesn't.

 

[On My Own]

I'm not sure if I can say that his 4T has become less perfect because he does it so rarely now in competition. Last year,

........................................................................................................................................^

That's when it became less than perfect.

 

[Sylvia]

"Ilia plans to sell his merch online, available worldwide" [first at 2024 Skate America]: https://x.com/TheIliaSociety/status/1847449755238223973

https://twitter.com/x/status/1847021038158110891

He wore the hoodie in his Gala number:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1848187340495212743

 

[jlai]

The 026 and 1 characters on the second pic are cool too (unless he means 1620 which makes no sense)

 

[Sylvia]

1620 degrees = a quad Axel

Google translation of part of the Japanese tweet embedded above:
“The kanji on the hoodie is the old Japanese numerals, Ichiroku Nirei, which means 1620 degrees, or four and a half rotations.”

 

[cailuj365]

........................................................................................................................................^

That's when it became less than perfect.

SkatingScores and I disagree: History of Ilia's solo 4T scores in reverse chronological order

Avg GOE total in 23-24 season: 3.5+ out of 4 total attempts. He had four of the top five non-backloaded 4T scores for the men last year.
Avg GOE total in 22-23 season: 2.7+ out of 5 landed attempts, and he also had 2 falls.

Now I will concede that apparently his best ever 4T came in 2022 Worlds FS, where he had +4.21 GOE. I have not seen that skate, and there is no video of it on non-geoblocked Internet that I can find (which is perhaps fortunate, given the rest of the skate was a disaster).

 

[Sylvia]

TV Asahi's feature on Ilia at Skate America:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1849344246127444051

 

[Sylvia]

Friday practice (Ilia's first) in Halifax:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1849884403914133854

Jackie Wong also reported that Ilia landed one 4A (haven't seen a clip posted yet). This fan account also has clips of his 4Lz+1Eu+3F & 4Lz+3T.

From an attendee: https://x.com/RobynKanter/status/1849946759889666154

I have to give Ilia kudos. He sitting anonymously in the stands for all of pairs and ladies ..

ETA - this was uploaded by USFS on Oct. 22:

 

[Sylvia]

Friday practice (Ilia's first) in Halifax:
..
Jackie Wong also reported that Ilia landed one 4A (haven't seen a clip posted yet).

Here it is:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1849988728112230417

 

[Wyliefan]

Love this first pic of Ilia from today's free skate: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBop9BUxdhs/?igsh=MWNhMDJoMGZ0NnZ3Ng==

 

[Sylvia]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1850625565130428796

 

[Sylvia]

Love this first pic of Ilia from today's free skate: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBop9BUxdhs/?igsh=MWNhMDJoMGZ0NnZ3Ng==

I like this one:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1850577935171809515

 

[Sylvia]

NBC Sports’ video of Ilia’s FS in Halifax from yesterday’s TV broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrJa8m7f2ec

 

[Wyliefan]

I like this one:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1850577935171809515

That's the one I meant. Isn't it amazing?