After Nailing His Short Program, ‘Quadg0d’ Ilia Malinin Is One Step Away From First U.S. Title

Jason Brown reacts following his skate during the men's short program at the 2023 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Jan. 27, 2023 in San Jose, Calif.

 

Brown Keeps Pushing The Sport Artistically

When Brown, 28, told his coach, Tracy Wilson, he intended to compete at the U.S. Championships while also maintaining his busy show schedule, she had only one condition: he had to push himself.
 
“I really believe if you go into shows, and you start watering down what you do, you will not be satisfied,” Wilson said. “So if you are going to do this, it has to be at that level. And so, having said this, he has trained throughout. When he was going to Japan before (San Jose), I told him, ‘Fine, but you are going to have to do your short program in the show.’”
 
Those fans in Yokohama, where the skater performed in six shows Jan. 6-8, had a treat, because the Olympian’s short to pianist Alexey Kosenko’s “Melancholy” is one of his very best. 
 
On Friday, the routine was nothing short of mesmerizing, with seamless transitions, captivating steps and movements, and perfect spins. It didn’t have a quad, but Brown’s triple axel and other jumps were on point, and the performance earned 100.25 points, similar to the score the skater gained at the U.S. Championships last season for his acclaimed “Sinnerman” routine.
 
“I can keep pushing the sport artistically and keep pushing for the quality and the GOE’s (Grades of Execution), the level of spins,” Brown said. 

 

“I Can Keep Up In My Own Way”

 

Ironically, Wilson — the 1988 Olympic ice dance bronze medalist with the late Rob McCall, and herself a longtime show skater — thinks the more shows Brown does, the better he gets.
 
“You learn things when you’re show skating — the experience of playing off the audience, of being dead tired going on the ice, of having not great ice, having a travel day,” Wilson, of Canada, said. “And you know what, suck it up, buttercup; you’ve got to step up and perform. And I think Jason has been able to do that in the shows — explore his limits and discovery untapped potential in himself.”
 
Created with longtime choreographer Rohene Ward in 2020, “Melancholy” was not used in competition until now. That’s fitting, because the program deals with Brown’s disappointment and reassessment after skating poorly at the 2018 U.S. Championships, also held in San Jose — a failure that likely cost him a spot on the PyeongChang Olympic team.
 
“There was so much that kind of stuck with me for so long, and I kind of held on to this trauma of the difficult moments there,” Brown said. “There’s so much that was triggering and really kept me up at night. And so this piece was just all about kind of working through that and starting a fresh new beginning.”
 
When not on the road, Brown splits his time between his family home in Highland Park, Illinois, and Toronto, where he moved in 2018 to train under Wilson and Brian Orser. He makes no apology for dividing his attention between show skating and training for competition.
 
“I don’t have the ability to, at 28 years old, train the way that I did,” he said. “So for me, if I can have that balance of constantly performing and being out in these shows, and pushing myself artistically, and still get to (compete) at events like this — you know, I’m still competitive.
 
“I’m always going to want to be the best that I possibly can be,” he added. “But at this stage, in what you call ‘the Ilia Malinin era,’ I can’t keep up (technically). I can keep up in my own way.”

Tomoki Hiwatashi reacts following his skate during the men's short program at the 2023 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Jan. 27, 2023 in San Jose, Calif.

 

Hiwatashi Fights To Regain Consistency

 

Sometimes, the rewards of skating a clean performance outweigh the risk of trying multiple quads. Just ask Tomoki Hiwatashi, the Colorado Springs, Colorado skater who sits third after the short program, right in position to regain the U.S. bronze medal he won in 2020.
 
The past two seasons, the 23-year-old skater, who is coached by Damon Allen at the Broadmoor World Arena, has had two quads in his short program: salchow and toe. But he rarely hit both, and too often “popped” the four revolutions into two. So this season, Allen suggested removing the quad salchow and adding a triple lutz, triple toe loop combination.
 
“Originally, I wasn’t very comfortable with that, because I really kind of wanted to put it all out there, put everything I have at stake and compete like that,” Hiwatashi said.
 
Still, he gave it a try, using his new short program layout at Grand Prix events in Great Britain and Japan. The results were disappointing: he placed ninth and 12th, respectively.
 
“That was kind of due to my lack of ability to keep myself consistent, to keep pushing myself ahead,” he said. “But I feel like, after my losses, I was really just [mad] at myself. And I felt like I really needed to work hard and push myself for the next six weeks coming up (before San Jose).”
 
Hiwatashi and Allen decided to limit the number of jumps the skater did in practice, in order to maximize landing those jumps he did try and improve his consistency. The result? A clean short and 85.43 points.
 
“I think everything’s kind of starting to fit in,” Hiwatashi said. “And yeah, I worked very hard coming in here.”
 

Quiet Consistency May Be ‘Leapin’ Liam’s’ Biggest Weapon

 

The “Quadg0d” isn’t the only skater competing in San Jose with a catchy nickname. There’s Liam Kapeikis, who sits fourth after Friday’s short program, 3.16 points behind Hiwatoshi. 
 
The 18-year-old from Wenatchee, Washington, goes by “Leapin Liam,” a nickname he credits to a visit from Slovak skater Józef Sabovcik, the 1984 Olympic bronze medalist, to his home skating club.
 
“When one of the skating moms saw that (Sabovcik’s) nickname was ‘Jumpin’ Joe,’ she was like, ‘Oh, you should get a nickname like that,’” Kapeikis said. “And then the same skating mom came up with Leapin’ Liam. I think I was about 10 years old, and I kind of forgot about it. A few years later, I was making an Instagram for my skating, and I was like, ‘You know, that would be a good name.’”
 
Kapeikis’ 82.27 points in the short put him in good position to improve upon his seventh place at the U.S. Championships last season. For that, he credits an impressive triple axel.
 
“I think that was probably the best triple axel I’ve ever done in competition,” he said. “I really just let myself get taken over by the energy of the arena and the audience.”
 
The son of skating coaches Louise and Paul Kapeikis, former touring pros with Disney on Ice, Kapeikis is stealthily making a name for himself in the senior ranks. He placed seventh at Skate America in October, then won an ISU Challenger event in Graz, Austria, in November.
 
“Kind of my weapon, or my thing that I’ve used all season to stay where I am, is consistency,” Kapeikis said. “Just being able to stay consistent here in San Jose and skate how I’ve been skating all season, was really my only goal.”
 

Chasing Down The Quads

 

Keegan Murphy, who coaches the skater in Richmond, British Columbia, said his pupil is good at “taking things step-by-step, doing all of the things he needs to do to, hopefully, be in the top 10 in the world someday.”
 
Unless your name is Jason Brown, that elite status will require multiple quads. Kapeikis hit a clean quad salchow in Graz and will include it in his free skate on Sunday.
 
“This, I think, will be the fifth or sixth time I’ve ever attempted (quad salchow) in a competition, and the first time in one this large,” he said. “In Austria, I was able to do it with positive GOE, so I’m trying to capitalize on that. I have landed quad toes (in practice), but it’s still not at a position where I’d be ready to put it into competition. That will likely come next season, or maybe later this season.”
 
Murphy thinks the training environment in Richmond, where Kapeikis shares the ice with three-time Canadian bronze medalist Wesley Chiu, will help lift him to new heights.
 
“We have great energy in the rink,” the coach said. “Everyone supports each other. Wesley and Liam have a great friendship, and they push each other every single day.”