Five weeks after his Olympic free skate unravelled, Ilia Malinin returned to the ice in Prague and reclaimed his standing. The American scored 329.40 points to win his third straight World Figure Skating Championship title.
A short program that decided the contest
The championship tilted early. Malinin opened with a huge quad flip and a quad Lutz, then capped the performance with a backflip that delighted the near-capacity crowd. The judges awarded him a personal-best short program score of 111.29 points, placing him almost ten points clear of the field.
A controlled free skate and a huge margin
More than 15,000 spectators fell silent when Malinin took the ice last on the final evening. He did not need his singular quad Axel. He landed five clean quadruple jumps and earned a free skate score of 218.11 points.
The final margin told the full story. Malinin finished almost 23 points ahead of Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama. His presentation marks reached a personal-best 95.04, with five perfect 10.0s for performance.
Olympic heartbreak put to rest
The moment offered a sharp contrast to Milan, where Malinin had squandered a five-point lead in the Olympic free skate just five weeks earlier. In Prague, his final backflip brought the crowd to its feet and sealed a fourth world medal and a third straight gold.
“This was probably one of the easier world championships I've been to,” Malinin said afterwards. “I felt like it was almost no pressure at all.”
The victory closed a season of extremes. Olympic team gold and a historic seven-quad free skate in December bookended the fall in Milan. In Prague, the 21-year-old let the moment speak for itself.
