In 2021, famed Russian figure skating coach Alexei Mishin said that no figure skater would ever be able to successfully perform a quad axel in his lifetime. The following year, two-time Olympic gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyu was training to master the jump, but when he attempted it at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, he fell short of finishing the four-and-a-half revolutions in the air. Mishin’s pronouncement, it seemed, had been validated.
“I thought I would see a quintuple toe before I would see a quad axel,” says 2002 Olympic bronze medalist Timothy Goebel, known in his time as the “Quad King.” Goebel was