NaevaBelle

Tree roots following the pattern of concrete footpaths

• That first big jump is a Quadruple Axel. It's 4.5 rotations in the air (you take off forwards rather than backwards, which is the extra half rotation). Nobody else in the world can do this jump it's so hard. He is the first and only person to ever land it cleanly, much less consistently. He had to land it cleanly here to have any hope of winning the World Champion title.
• Yes, he's skating to music from Succession! The audience is clapping in support because he was doing so well (also because it was hosted in Montreal and the audience was very supportive of all the skaters that evening).
• He lays down on the ice because he just broke multiple world records. He landed all 6 types of quadruple jumps cleanly, which no one has ever done at all (again, because he's the only one that can do the quad Axel), much less in a single program like this. This was an insane feat of athletic ability! If you go watch the other guys who competed against him, Yuma Kagiyama was in second place by 20 fucking points, and Yuma skated with no falls. This is Micheal Phelps / Katie Ledecky levels of smashing the competition (sorry the only other sport I know is swimming).

• Ilia listed that first jump as a Triple Axel on the sheet you give to the judges, meaning that he wasn't committed to doing the Quad Axel. (Technically you're not committed to anything on the sheet but it's generally your "plan" for the program.) He also doesn't do a quad axel in the 6-minute warmup beforehand when he does go and do it in the program, so it was a complete toss-up as to whether he was going to go for it. It's incredible that he manages to land the jump so perfectly without warming it up first!
• He was 3rd coming into this skate from the previous short program. (All skating competitions require you to skate 2 different programs, 1 short and 1 long.) In order to win the title, he was going to have to skate without any falls, especially because his one strong point is his jumps and other skaters are stronger in other areas. There are many, many skaters who fall on their quad jumps, even when they're just doing one. It is so fucking hard to do even one of the 6 types of quad jumps. And he just does all 6! In one program! Insanity!
• He did a 4 Lutz - 3 Flip at the halfway point of his program. Almost no one puts a Flip on the end of their combos, it'll usually be a Salchow instead because it's much easier. The only other skater I can think of to put a Flip on the end of a combo is Shoma Uno (who was also at these championships but didn't have a good skate).
• His last jumping pass was a combo that was supposed to be a 3 Lutz - 2 Axel. He decided, in the moment, to change the 2 Axel to a 3 Axel. Nobody else has ever attempted this, much less succeeded. It is orders of magnitude more difficult to do another rotation to the second jump in a combo, at the very end of a 4.5 minute sprint no less.

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