Inexperienced vs. Figure skater: The Quad Axel

Anna Sgarbi:

For those of you who don’t know me that well, or haven’t heard yet, I am one of two figure skaters that go to BGA. While I am not planning on going to the Olympics and wouldn’t call myself a figure skater “know it all,” I tend to keep up with the competitions that happen all year round. Not only do I keep up with competitions, but I also keep track of skaters, especially the important ones. Ilia Malinin, an 18-year-old skating for the USA, has landed the quadruple axel in competition. For those of you who don’t know what an axel is, an axel is a forward taking-off jump where the skaters takes off forward and lands backward. To make it even more difficult, skaters usually add between 1 through 4 ½  rotations to receive more points in their overall competition score. The world has only ever seen up to three turns until now. Ilia Malinin has successfully completed 4 ½ rotations on this jump in competition! Imagine feeling eight times your body weight while landing on a tiny blade, all on one foot. This is what it feels like to land a quad-axel. Throwing oneself in the air and rotating 4 ½ times while landing on 600-800 pounds of pressure was not a seemingly possible thing, but Malinin has achieved the impossible.

Jordan Collins: 

I, on the other hand, am definitely not a figure skater. My perspective comes from someone who mostly watches figure skating when it comes on during the Winter Olympics. The complex physics and intricate difficulties of the jumps, spins, and moves these skaters do on ice are things I never even thought about! The skaters spectators watch on TV often look like they are simply floating across the ice, like they are light as a feather as they execute each move with seemingly no effort, gracefully gliding across the ice. However, their elegance does not come simply, as these skaters are often going up to fifteen miles per hour when they are going into a jump, most often entering those jumps facing backward! As stated before, these awe-inspiring jumps often have a 130-pound skater landing with around 600 pounds of force on a 0.15 to 0.25-inch blade! Another surprising fact is that when a skater spins, they can be spinning as fast as six rotations per second, enough to make even a spectator dizzy! Ilia Manlin’s feat of a quadruple axel is even more astonishing now knowing just how much effort and incredible physics are required to achieve it. It is especially impressive as well considering that he is only 18 years old! This beautiful sport can be viewed in a different light once you realize just how much complex physics, a great amount of force, and remarkable courage go into each skater’s stunning moves.