How U.S. Figure Skater Ilia Malinin Got His Awesome 'Quad God' Nickname

Ilia Malinin is going for his second gold medal of the Milan Cortina Games on Friday. | Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

Ilia Malinin enters Friday's men's free skate in first place after a virtuoso figure skating performance in the short program that earned him a 108.16 from the judges. He is building on the success of an unforgettable backflip that helped propel the United States to gold in the team event and has the opportunity to further his legacy with an individual triumph.

Every two years, Olympians move from the fringes of the collective sports consciousness closer to the center, with some cementing themselves as household names for decades to come. That's what Malinin is doing right now and with that everyone is hearing his incredible nickname more often.

And why not? Who doesn't get a bit of a smile when referring to to America's most visible figure skater as the Quad God?

Great art does not require dissection but it's only natural to wonder how this moniker came to be. But here's how it went down. It's all actually quite simple.

How did Quad God get his nickname?

Malinin has defied the odds to get to this place, where he could very well call himself as the best figure skater on the planet. To a much lesser degree, he may have accomplished something else with a high degree of difficulty it sounds like he was the one who started the whole "Quad God" thing.

In a very strong flex, Malinin changed his Instagram handle to "ilia_quadg0d_malinin" as a nod to his ability to land quadruple jumps.It has become rather routine for him to break his own records for executing the most quadruple jumps in his program and he is the first to land a quadruple Axel in competition.

The skater spoke about how the spur-of-the-moment change has served as a challenge for him to get better in an interview with the Washingtonian last year.

Seven months later, kicking off the season’s ISU Grand Prix at the 2020 Skate America event in Las Vegas, Malinin stuck his first two sanctioned quadruple jumps—the quad toe loop and the quad Salchow—in his senior debut. It was enough to motivate him to ditch @Lutz­boy in favor of something unabashedly aspirational. “Everyone kind of got angry at me, like, ‘Why’d you name yourself Quadg0d? You only landed two quads,’ ” he says. “And I was like, ‘Well, I guess now it’s time for me to land the rest of them.’ The username was my motivation.

The results seem to speak for themselves. It turns out that, yes, one can give themselves a nickname if they then go on to become the preeminent athlete in their sport and dominate on the world stage. It's a high bar but some can clear it and then stick the landing.

Someday we may be fortunate enough to see a Quintuple God or Goddess. All it takes is a quick profile change and then pushing one's body past reasonable limits and defying gravity.

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