The jump that finally broke
the biggest barrier in figure skating wasn’t landed at the Olympic Games, under the bright lights of a packed arena with millions watching on television.
It wasn’t conquered by
Yuzuru Hanyu, the two-time Olympic champion on a quest to claim it as his own, or
Nathan Chen, the reigning Olympic gold medalist who had briefly explored whether it was within his own impressive range.
And there was barely anyone there to see it.
The elusive quadruple axel—four and a half rotations in the air, from a tricky forward takeoff—was instead landed cleanly in competition by a Virginia teenager in a near-empty rink in Lake Placid, N.Y. on Wednesday night at an obscure early season competition.