I figure skated for a long time as a kid, starting when I was five and quitting (without much choice) when the pandemic hit. It was only after I quit, when I was cooped up in my room with nothing to do, that I started to watch high-level figure skating and became the world's #1 biggest figure skating fan.
In fact, I recently had the privilege to go to the World Figure Skating Championships, which were right here in Boston (the first time they've been in the U.S. since 2016)! There were so many incredible performances, but there were two major things about this competition which had me really excited:
- Ilia Malinin landing a quadruple axel
- Alysa Liu's return to figure skating
ONE.
Ilia Malinin has been landing the quad axel since 2022. Knowing he's landed it and watching videos of it, however, is not nearly as amazing as watching him jump it in-person. The axel is different from the other five figure skating jumps, and was thought to be impossible:
In every other jump the skater takes off backwards and lands on their dominant foot (for most skaters this is their right foot), meaning a quad jump of any other type is exactly four revolutions. In a quad axel you take off going forward, meaning you have to add in an extra half a revolution to your jump. It was thought to be nearly impossible, with every other quad jump achieved and perfected. People did the calculations: you had to find the perfect balance between speed and height and execute it exactly. And yet—Ilia Malinin did it, and does it again and again.
I think it's a sign of a great skater to ignore the "impossible" and try it anyway: it's how we got to see a quad axel, and it's how we might one day see quintuples.
TWO.
Alysa Liu was just becoming a figure skating phenomenon when I started to watch her in 2021, having dominated the youth circuit and about to attend the Olympics. She announced her retirement shortly after, in 2022, saying she was satisfied and wanted to leave on her own terms. AND THEN... SHE CAME BACK IN 2024-2025! And she absolutely crushed it, winning both the short program and the free skate.
There's something about her performances which were absolutely magical—like you could see that she loved the sport more than ever. It was absolutely stunning and her free skate was the highlight of the competition. I wish I could burn the image of her skating into my brain forever.
THOUGHTS.
It's interesting to have grown up at the same time as these people, seeing kids who are only a year or two older than me be the best in the world at their sport. Maybe it should be a little depressing, but it's actually kind of inspiring—it makes me feel like the impossible is possible, and fills me with the confidence that I want to lead my whole life with, like anything can be achieved through sheer willpower. I'm living the life that I never imagined I could live four years ago, and I can't even begin to imagine what I might be doing four years from now, but I hope it's something that I'm just as amazed by.
There's something empowering about these two, Ilia persisting throughout while Alysa left only to come back better than ever. It's a sign, maybe, that even though I don't know what I want yet, there's no wrong way to go about it—I'll end up where I'm meant to be some way or another.
| name | value |
| date | 2025-03-30 |