The world is holding its breath as American superstar Ilia Malinin prepares for the most anticipated performance of the 2026 Winter Olympics.

The 21-year-old is entering the men’s individual free skate with a commanding five-point lead and a chance to shatter the ceiling of what is humanly possible on ice.

After already securing a team gold medal for the U.S. earlier this week, Malinin silenced doubters during Tuesday’s short program. He dazzled the judges with a score of 108.16, landing a jaw-dropping backflip and his signature “raspberry twist.”

Reflecting on his earlier nerves, Malinin admitted, “In the team event, I think I had too much Olympic excitement, it really came back and beat me.”

To regain his focus for the individual event, he decided to “take things a little more slowly, a little more calm, and honestly just push the auto-pilot button.”

The viral “trigger” everyone is waiting for is the quadruple Axel – a 4.5 revolution jump so difficult that Malinin is the only person to ever land it.

While he played it safe in earlier rounds, he teased fans about his strategy, smirking that his “lazy part of me” simply forgot to change the triple Axel on his entry forms.

As he takes the ice tonight as the final skater, the world is waiting to see if the “Quad God” will finally unleash history.