Fans want to know if Team USA figure skater Ilia Malinin has a girlfriend.
Malinin, known as the “Quad God,” looks to be saving his most difficult move, the quadruple axel, which is a 4 1/2-revolution jump, for the individual free skate competition. He’s the only person ever to land that jump in competition and the overwhelming favorite to win gold.
As viewers saw in the team event, even if Malinin doesn’t perform perfectly, the difficulty level of his routine gives him a record-high point value. He scored 108.16 in the individual short program, over five points higher than the second-place finisher.
While the 21-year-old makes his performance on the ice look easy, what he’s doing is absolutely extraordinary.
To reach that level of technical mastery, however, comes sacrifice. As fans across the globe cheer on the U.S. figure skater who’s coached by his parents, Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, they also wonder if the young phenom has a girlfriend.
Ilia Malinin Doesn’t Have Time for a Girlfriend
In addition to training for the Milan Cortina Olympic Games for six hours, six days a week, Malinin is a student at George Mason University. He’s an exploratory studies major in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, per GMU.
While he finds relaxation in skateboarding, video games, and art, there’s no free time date, he told People magazine. Malinin is single.
The Vienna, Virginia native started skating at age six. While his parents initially didn’t want him to follow their footsteps into the figure skating world, intimately knowing the kind of sacrifices the sport takes, his talent was undeniable.
“When I first started skating, it was just going to be a recreational hobby,” he said on USA Today’s Milan Magic podcast. “My parents didn’t want me to go into skating. They wanted me to see if I would find another passion because they knew, of course, the time, the effort, the dedication it was.
“They went through all of this, all these troubles, sacrifices, and they were like, I don’t think we want any more skaters in the family. But here we are, two skaters in the family now, and me coming up on my first Olympic Games. So I think it was kind of meant to be.”
Ilia Malinin Is Already Planning to Compete in the Next 2 Olympics
Malinin has earned comparisons to U.S. gymnastics legend Simone Biles, as he does things in competition that no one else can. The “Quad God” is unbeaten in his past 14 competitions dating back to 2023.
Malinin’s final combined score of 318.56 at the world championships in March was over 31 points higher than any other competitor.
Brian Boitano, 1988 gold medalist, told ESPN, “I [hope fans] appreciate what they’re seeing with Ilia. It’s like no matter how easy this looks, and no matter how effortless it might seem, if you put another guy, any other competitor, on the ice and asked them to do the same performance, they wouldn’t even try it because they can’t. … It’s something that hasn’t been done before and maybe won’t be done again.”
While Malinin will get some much-needed rest after his run at the 2026 Winter Games, he has no plans to stop skating any time soon. He’s already mulling over the 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps and the 2034 Olympics in Salt Lake City.
“I’m playing everything by ear and how I feel just in general, and the passion I have for skating,” he revealed on Milan Magic. “So who knows, might be a fourth or fifth (Olympics). I mean, we’ll see how long I can keep going.”