At 15 years old, Kamila Valieva just became the first woman to land a quad in Olympic history.

At 15 years old, Kamila Valieva's hobbies include dancing, drawing and setting world records.

On Monday, the elite teen athlete performed one of the most difficult jumps in figure skating — a jump so difficult no other woman had done it before at the Olympics — and then a second time.

The 15-year-old Russian Olympic Committee team skater twice achieved a famous quadruple jump during the free skating portion of the team event on Monday. His performance helped his team win the gold medal, the United States won the silver and Japan won the bronze medal.

Quad jumps require at least four turns but fewer than five, and although they have increasingly become a staple in elite men's figure skating, none had ever been successfully performed by a woman at the Olympics prior to the advent of quad jumps. of Valieva in Beijing.

She first landed a quad-salchow, a jump that requires a skater to lift off the ice with the inside edge of one skate, complete four revolutions in the air, and then land cleanly on the outside edge of the other foot. Next, Valieva completed a quadruple spike loop with a triple spike combo. She attempted a third quad but fell on the landing.
Valieva also performed a difficult triple axis, becoming only the fourth woman to perform this jump at the Winter Olympics.

Valieva also completed quad jumps during the ISU Grand Prix Rostelecom Cup last November, where she set a world record. She holds nine world records in the sport.