Tursynbaeva becomes first female skater to land quad

Kazakhstan’s Elizabet Tursynbaeva became the first woman to land the quad at the World Figure Skating Championships.

If you thought the quad was all the rage with the men in competitive figure skating, get ready for the women to take it on, too.

Kazakhstan’s Elizabet Tursynbaeva just landed a quadruple salchow at the world competition, beginning her Tango routine with the historic feat from the start. Watch it in all its glory here:

Not only did she land the unprecedented jump, she did it flawlessly and with panache, becoming the first woman to do so in senior ladies’ competition.

“I can’t believe I landed it,” Tursynbaeva said according to the Associated Press. “It was good in practice this morning. I couldn’t do it at the last two competitions so I was really glad to be able to do it here.”

Talk about fearless. The young skater attempted — and flawlessly executed — the feat on the biggest stage in figure skating outside of the Olympics.

The technical accomplishment increased her total point tally to 224.76, skyrocketing her to second place, over Russian favorite Evgenia Medvedeva, the reigning Olympic silver medalist.

It was quite a coup for the Kazakh skater with the two stiff competitors from Russia, Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova, performing beautiful routines and having generated most of the buzz in ladies figure skating since landing the Gold and Silver in the Olympics.

Prior to the PyeongChang Olympics, the younger of the two, Zagitova had existed in Medvedeva’s shadow, but emerged a superstar in her own right by performing the skate of her life to grab the 2018 Gold medal at the Winter Olympics.

Since then, the dynamic between the two highly competitive skaters has shifted, with Medvedeva struggling after moving to Canada last year. The 19-year-old from Moscow seems to have rallied at this year’s Worlds, however, coming in third, with 223.80 points in her free skate.

The world will be watching Tursynbaeva after she threw down the gauntlet at such a high-profile venue, to see if she can keep up that kind of technical advantage. Once one lady lands a quad, you know that it will only serve as impetus for more to tackle it.

The ladies free skate will air Friday night, on NBC, beginning at 9:00 p.m. EST. You’ll definitely want to tune in to see history made.