Two-time Olympic champion figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu did a quad axel in training
Photo: Jessica Gow / tt / Reuters
Two-time Olympic figure skating champion Yuzuru Hanyu did a quad axel in training before the Japanese Championships. Reported by journalist Jackie Wong on Twitter.
The skater performed a jump on two legs and with an under-spin, but was able to avoid falling. The Japanese planned to jump the axel at one of the stages of the Grand Prix of the current season, but was forced to withdraw from the competition due to injury.
At the moment, no athlete has been able to cleanly execute a quadruple axel. The only skater in history who attempted to perform a jump in a competition was Russian Artur Dmitriev. However, the athlete could not land the jump even in training.
Alexei Mishin, previously honored figure skating coach of the USSR, who worked with two-time Olympic champion Evgeny Plushenko, assessed the prospect of athletes performing a quadruple axel. He called the element unattainable for all skaters in the world and clarified that no one can purely perform a quadruple axel during his lifetime.
