Tatiana Tarasova: “Malinin is the skater of the future. His technique is unique – there’s no way to compare him to any skater from the past. Right now, he has no rivals, and back then, there wouldn’t have been any either.”
Tatiana Tarasova: “Ilia Malinin Has No Rivals”
original source: Sport24
Tatiana Tarasova expressed her admiration for two-time world champion Ilia Malinin, emphasizing his groundbreaking achievements in figure skating. Here’s a translation of her comments.
“Malinin is the skater of the future. Ilia’s technique is unique – there’s no way to compare him to any skater from the past. Right now, he has no rivals, and back then, there wouldn’t have been any either. In the past, top athletes were only performing one or two quadruple jumps at best.”
She dismissed comparisons between Malinin and legendary skaters Evgeni Plushenko and Alexei Yagudin: “Plushenko, Yagudin, and Malinin are entirely different cases. Perhaps, emotionally, Alexei Yagudin had a stronger presence than Ilia, but that’s not what matters here. No one has ever done what Malinin is capable of technically.”
Tarasova added her thoughts on the future of figure skating: “Maybe in 15 or 20 years, someone stronger than Ilia will emerge, but in the past, there was no one like him.”
Related topics: Ilia Malinin, Tatiana Tarasova
I don’t think she was putting one down actually, but perhaps she did overlook the fact that others can do multiple clouds. I think Shaidarov comes very close to Ilia. Definitely will be a quad fest at the Olympic podium
I’m not disagreeing about Ilia being the moment when it comes to technical content. No one has ever done what he’s capable of pulling off for now. But you don’t have to put others down to lift Ilia up. Nathan Chen certainly did more than 1 or 2 quads. So did Hanyu, or Uno. Shaidorov or Adam on a good day also have 3+ quads. Again, not as much as Ilia does, but it’s just factually wrong to imply that he’s the only one to ever have more than 2 different quads.