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JUMP TO:
- Who was first skater to complete Olympic backflip?
- Who is Surya Bonaly?
- Ilia Malinin backflip video
- Why were backflips illegal in Olympic figure skating?
- How are backflips in Olympic figure skating scored?
Figure skating routines, while marked by technical precision and speed, have often carried a similar look over the past 50 years. There are axels and Lutzes, Salchows and toe-loops. The rhythm by which athletes dance through ice and air might have changed. But the moves themselves are steeped in tradition, crafted by artisans from the past, whose skates looked a lot different to the ones used in the present-day.
And yet, there is still space for innovation on the great white plain. Skaters like Ilia Malinin have captivated audiences with technique, guile and, most importantly, their athleticism.
Malinin might look a spindly figure to the naked eye. But his performances are draped in color. He spins and twirls like few others in world figure skating. And when he vaults into the air, people notice.
Malinin's routines have become the stuff of lore in recent years. One of the biggest reasons why? His embrace of the backflip.
The backflip was a cursed term in Olympic competition before Malinin's ascendancy. But just what is the history behind one of figure skating's most controversial moves? Here's what you need to know.
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Who was the first figure skater to complete Olympic backflip?
While Malinin's acrobatics were eye-catching, they weren't wholly unprecedented. 25 years before he was born, another skater took flight.
During the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, American Terry Kubicka accomplished the feat, completing a two-footed legal backflip to cap his free skate routine.
It wasn't the first time Kubicka leapt to the heavens; he pulled off the stunt during the 1976 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, striding to gold in the process.
“As far as I know, it’s legal,” Kubicka said ahead of the 1976 Games, “so I’ll still be doing it until someone tells me I can’t.”
Kubicka's performance was certainly high-flying. That didn't translate to his final score, however. Kubicka placed seventh in the event.
"There was a lot of scuttlebutt about the backflip," Kubicka told Slate's Nick Greene in 2018. "Is it going to be counted? Should they ban it before the Olympics? But in reality, there was no rule that said I could not do it. However, when it was all over and done with, some of the discussions I heard were, “What if the judges just didn’t score it at all because they didn’t know what to do with it?” I’m not sure whether that was true or not."
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Who is Surya Bonaly?
Twenty-two years after Kubicka's memorable display in Innsbruck, French skater Surya Bonaly joined him in the rafters.
Bonaly, a Black woman, was born in Nice, France in 1973. At eight months old, she was adopted by a white couple who yearned for a non-white child because "they are the babies no one takes," her mother told Sports Illustrated in 1995. Acrobatics were a part of her life way before she took the ice at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Bonaly was a gymnast in her youth, capturing a silver medal in the 1986 junior world championship in team tumbling.
Her gymnastics background served her well on the ice. Under the tutelage of French national team coach Didier Gailhaguet, Bonaly became one of Europe's finest skaters, collecting three World Championships silver medals and five European Championships golds.
Bonaly appeared in three Winter Olympics. Her final effort, the 1998 Winter Olympics, saw her complete a one-footed backflip, much to the chagrin of the event's live broadcaster, who, as Africa is a Country notes, exclaimed, “Backflip, totally illegal in competition! She’s doing this to get the crowd. She’s going to get nailed.”
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Bonaly did receive a deduction for her flip. She placed 10th in the competition, retiring shortly thereafter. Despite her lowly score, Bonaly's legacy on- and off-the-ice is a memorable one. She's one of three Black women to figure skate at the Olympic level, along with Tai Babilonia and Debi Thomas. Her willingness to push beyond arbitrary bounds imposed by Olympic judges continues to inspire nearly 30 years after her retirement.
"For girls like me," Stacia L. Brown wrote in The New Republic in 2015, "Bonaly’s skating career wasn’t just admirable because she was one of very few black girls to make it to the top competitive tier; it was remarkable because she did it on her own terms, refusing to tamp down her flashiest moves or her mercurial, post-performance temperament."
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Ilia Malinin backflip video
Here's a look at Ilia Malinin's gold-medal-clinching display in the men's short program of the team event, a performance that features his world-renowned backflip.
Are backflips allowed in Olympic figure skating?
Backflips are, indeed, legal in Olympic figure skating. The International Skating Union deemed the rule legal in 2024, ending a nearly 50-year ban against the move.
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Why were backflips illegal in Olympic figure skating?
The International Skating Union opted to ban the backflip from official competition following Kubicka's performances at the 1976 Winter Olympics and World Championships (held in March 1976). According to Kubicka, the technical panel declared the move was too dangerous.
Kubicka agreed somewhat with the ruling, although he doesn't consider the move to be any more dangerous than other techniques used in the sport.
"Well, I think there are a lot of moves that can be dangerous," Kubicka said. "I think that if you have trained appropriately to do the move, I don’t think it’s probably much more dangerous than some of the other moves, especially [ones] the pairs skaters do."
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How are backflips in Olympic figure skating scored?
According to NPR's Rachel Treisman, backflips are not counted towards a skater's technical score. It could help boost a skater's artistic tally, though.
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