(3 April 2023)  For technically minded fans, the 2022/23 season far beyond all else has been the season of the quad Axel.  For a long time we had wondered, as many others have, what it would take to complete a quad Axel, or if it was even possible at all.  This season Ilia Malinin answered those questions with the most definitive of answers, and at the 2023 World Championships Malinin completed the regular season (World Trophy still remains) with the most extraordinary execution of a quad Axel in the Men's free skate.  By far, from a biomechanical point of view, this execution was as close to perfect as one is likely to ever see.

Ilia Malinin Quad Axel, 2023 World Figure Skating Championships Free Skate

The judges, in their ISU judging logic, gave this execution mediocre GoEs of 0, 3, 1, -1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0.  Nevertheless, from a biomechanical point of view, we are absolutely stunned by the athletic achievement of this jump.  Before discussing the marks further, note the following characteristics of this execution.

The entry speed into the jump was about 15 ft/sec, and was 10 ft/sec at the instant of takeoff.  To give this context, a fast step sequence (of the footwork tornado style) has a speed over the ice of 10-15 ft/sec, so the jump took off at nearly the same speed as a fast footwork sequence.  In addition, the skater kept 2/3 of his entry speed at the instant of takeoff.

The jump achieved a maximum height of 32 in.  This is at the limit of human capability.  Jumps rarely reach this height.  From singles to quads the typical height of a jump is 12 inches (0.5 sec in the air).  For successful triples typical heights are about 24 in.  It is rare to see quads reach 27 in.  Studies of countermovement jumps of elite athletes rarely have jumps higher than 30 in.  So the height of this jump is extraordinary and unique.

The peak rotation rate was 6.25 rotations per second, a rate he regularly achieves in successful executions of this jump.  In comparison nearly all elite skaters rarely rotate faster than 6 rotations per second maximum.  We have captured only one other skater with a rotation rate faster than 6 rotations per second.

Just prior to landing the skater was still rotating at 5.5 rotations per second, and just after the instant of landing 4.7 rotations a second.  It is rare to see an elite skater control a landing when rotating faster than 3-4 rotations per second.  Most land their jumps at 2-3 rotations per second.

The air position is nearly perfect, though could actually be even better with tighter elbows, and flat palms instead of fists.

The landing is fully rotated.  The following image shows the fully rotated landing edge about 30 msec after landing.  The exposure has been adjusted to bring out the short landing trace on the ice at this point in the landing.  The landing edge is initially straight backwards with no rotation on the ice.

Due to the high rotation rate at the landing, the exit of the jump continued with a tight landing edge and a small break at the waist.  Whether this should be considered a minor error or an artifact of what is required to fully rotate this jump can be debated.  In our view it is primarily an artifact of what is necessary to complete the jump.  Once cannot complete this jump successfully with a high rotation rate at the landing, and controlling the landing at those speeds is a Herculean feat.  The landing of the quad Axel at 2022 Skate America was only marginally better than this one.

But the judges were less enamored of this jump than the quantitative measurement of it would indicate is appropriate.  We have no way to delve into the murky corners of the judges' brains, but we can apply biomechanical standards to the bullet points for positive GoE aspects.

From our biomechanical point of view, a fully rotated quad Axel (and quads in general) have a starting GoE of +4, from which one might make a reduction of one if you choose to nit pick the smallest of flaw (as you could the body position during slowing the rotation in the landing here).

Why +4 you ask?

Consider the positive GoE aspects for jumps.

1) very good height and very good length (of all jumps in a combo or sequence)

To complete a clean quad Axel the skater must achieve near the maximum height humanly possible and take off with better than very good speed to generate the torque needed which generates a very good length.  It is physically impossible to complete a clean fully rotated quad Axel without this bullet.

2) good take-off and landing

Following up on the first bullet, it is physically impossible to complete a clean quad Axel without a good take-off and landing.  The skater most certainly cannot complete the jump without a good take-off.  Anything less than an excellent take-off will deprive the skater of the height and forward speed needed to have the necessary time in the air and achieve the necessary rotation rate.

One might nit pick that the tight landing edge is not a good landing.  Biomechanically we disagree.

To complete the rotations with NO missing rotations on the landing, the skater must land with an atypically high rotation rate, which most skaters are unable to control to avoid falling.  If a skater lands a quad Axel, fully rotated, at the high rotation rates needed, then by definition we consider the landing a good landing, biomechanically, no matter how tight the landing edge may appear to be (so long as it does not result in a step or turn out of the landing - which would mean not a clean jump).

3) effortless throughout (including rhythm in Jump combination)

One cannot land a fully rotated clean quad Axel that is not effortless throughout.  The jump is so close to the limits of human capability that the lack of effortlessness at any point in the jump is enough to prevent the success of the jump.

4) steps before the jump, unexpected or creative entry

These are things that are not intrinsic to the execution of the quad Axel, or any jump for that matter.  They are something extra for the skater to strive for, but are often not seen.  Nearly always the Axel entry is glide backwards, step forwards, glide forwards, jump.

5) very good body position from take-off to landing

To achieve the height and rotation rate needed, and to control the rotation rate in the air, the body position of the skater must not be very good throughout.  It must be nearly perfect.  The jump can not be successfully completed cleanly with no missing rotations without this bullet.  The maximum rotation rate of 6.25 per second executed could not be achieved if this bullet was not met.

6) element matches the music

This too is not intrinsic to the biomechanics of the jump, and is something extra for the skater to strive for.  In general it is not very difficult, all that is needed is to time the jump to a strong highlight in the music.

Putting it all together, if a quad Axel is cleanly executed, without any missing rotation, by definition it has met bullets 1, 2, 3, and 5, and the starting GoE is +4; since if any of those bullets are missing the execution will not be cleanly executed and/or not have full rotation.  The only bullets that require any thought at all are 4 and 6,  and unless the choreographer has placed the jump at a lull in the music, bullet 6 is pretty much a given, getting the skater to +5.

Any minor flaws that might be present will reduce the GoE, but for the quad Axel at Worlds, biomechanically we do not consider the tight landing edge an error worthy of a reduction.  In fact, biomechanically we do not consider it a significant error, but mostly an artifact intrinsic to the high rotation rate at the instant of the landing that this jump requires for success.

Based on the height of the jump, speed at takeoff, rotation rate in the air and at the instant of landing, and the body position of the skater throughout the jump, biomechanically we consider Malinin's Worlds quad Axel to be close to perfect.  But somehow, for the Worlds panel, this jump was merely adequate.  Their collective scores a resounding meh!  In contrast, the quad Axel at 2022 Skate America, though slightly inferior to this one received GoEs from 2 through 4.  The Skate America execution was not quite as high, nor quite as long, nor quite as fully rotated as this one, yet its average GoE was over seven times greater.

In a previous commentary we have remarked how the unacceptably frequent failure of technical panels to identify egregious execution errors argues that skating is now an unjudgeable sport.  Now we can add to this line of thought that judging panels seem incapable of recognizing an extraordinary athletic feat when it stares them in the face.  Only one judge on the Worlds panel gave a defensible GoE.