Ilia Malini’s back flips are a sight to behold, but when he casually leaps over his fellow ice skaters, it becomes a show stopper. The “Quad God” was on his way to pull another trick, but a familiar voice held him back. Reports of Amber Glenn and Ilia Malinin’s feud were circling, but the 26-year-old responded and clarified, “I literally dmed the account because I clicked on the video, tapped to skip fwd and didn’t even know I ‘liked’ it.” But she did confront Malinin over something.

“Don’t you dare!” Three words that saw Amber Glenn stop an Olympian, Ilia Malinin, in his tracks. Ilia Malinin has built a career on doing exactly what the sport said was impossible, performing leap after leap. Glenn, though, wasn’t about to let his bravado put someone else in harm’s way this time.

In a video circling on X, one of the figure skaters was lying on the ice after an exhausting training session while Glenn circled her, chatting. Out of the corner of her eye, the 26-year-old saw Ilia Malinin rapidly approaching. Everyone knew exactly what the 21-year-old American was planning to do: backflip over the skater on the ice. But Glenn wasn’t having it, as it could’ve easily injured the skater on the ice.

“Don’t you dare,” Glenn told Malinin, as per a video on X.

It’s unclear exactly when this incident occurred, but loyal fans of the Americans have revealed that it is not the first time.

It’s a feat that Malinin has done multiple times individually, although doing it over a figure skater, even in training, is an interesting decision. This time, Glenn wasn’t having anything to do with it, yet she stepped in the middle, and the crowd laughed as Malinin skated away. 

In fact, a few fans on X even wrote that Malinin has attempted to do this multiple times before, with Glenn acting as a protector yet again. The 26-year-old is among the older skaters on Team USA and served as a protector for the younger skaters during the Winter Olympics. That has continued even after the event, with Alysa Liu attesting to it in multiple interviews.

However, the situation flipped in Seattle when Ilia Malinin lured Amber Glenn over. His request was simple: film him and Jacob Sanchez while they attempted a trick. Glenn agreed, even if her face showed that she believed something fishy was going on. Then Sanchez lay down on the ice, Malinin left for a run-up, and Glenn’s voice could be heard saying “Ohhh, no no no”.

It turns out, Malinin had lured Glenn over to film them as he performed a back-flip…over Jacob Sanchez. Sanchez didn’t even lie down until the last minute to help make the ruse work. The move worked out perfectly, with all three executing their roles as the crowd cheered again. And why wouldn’t it work out?

Malinin is, after all, known as the “Quad God”. The 21-year-old has practically and almost single-handedly redefined figure skating and jumping. Not just that, during the 2026 Winter Olympics, he became the first person to legally land a backflip in the Olympics.

Thus, the move has become part and parcel of his wide arsenal of jumps and flips. In fact, for Malinin, the backflip represents a key reason why figure skating has been thriving recently.

“I think it’s really something that’s really bringing back the popularity of the sport,” Malinin told the LA Times ahead of the Olympics, “because the backflip is something that I’m sure a lot of people know, just the basics of what it really is. So I think just having that really just can bring in the non-figure skating crowd.”

In fact, the 21-year-old has performed it multiple times during the Stars on Ice tour recently. He performed a variety of it during their most recent leg, where Malinin landed on one skate and even grabbed a skate mid-air to add an extra flourish to it. 

Yet for all the gasps the backflip draws, Malinin isn’t performing it for shock value alone. Stars on Ice has given him something Olympic competition rarely does: room to breathe, experiment, and simply enjoy the ice.

Ilia Malinin opens up on the freedom of performing at Stars on Ice

Ilia Malinin entered the 2026 Winter Olympics as a superstar. The 21-year-old had won all 14 tournaments before the Olympics, making him the favorite to dominate the men’s individual skate. Yet, the pressure of the event and the significance of it all got to Malinin as he stumbled, fell, and performed several errors in his routine.

The 21-year-old dropped well outside a podium placing, eventually finishing eighth. It was a startling return from the favorite and one nobody expected, but Malinin admitted that the pressure did indeed get to him. However, that led to the arrival of a new version of the figure skater, one that could handle it. 

More than anything, his third consecutive World Championship gold showcased that, less than a month after the Olympics. Yet, more than anything, his performance and routines during Stars on Ice have personified a freer version of Ilia Malinin. That’s something the 21-year-old himself admitted, that he has been a different version of himself during the tour.

“There’s no pressure of judges and having to perform perfectly,” Malinin told USA Today Sports (via News.lee). “You really can just do absolutely everything, and just enjoy what you want to do.”

“Performing for the audience and not having any expectations of what to do. Just really be myself out there and show them who Ilia is.”

It’s something the backflips, the joking around with teammates, and everything else in between have showcased more than anything. In fact, Malinin makes it utterly obvious that he’s having a ball while performing a variety of routines accompanied by equally dazzling costumes. 

On the ice, Malinin is untouchable, and clearly, he knows it. Off the ice, though, Amber Glenn is the one authority Malinin hasn’t figured out how to bypass