Ilia Malinin Bounces Back From Winter Olympics Nightmare With 3rd Straight World Title

PRAGUE (AP) — Ilia Malinin is back on the top step of the podium.

Six weeks after a disastrous free skate knocked the Olympic gold-medal favorite off the podium, the “quad god” reeled off one huge jump after another, and a backflip for good measure, to retain his world championship title on Saturday for the third year running.

Malinin shouted and punched the air with relief after finishing a skate that showed he had achieved his desire to “move on” from the Olympics after days tormented by his mistakes.

He praised the crowd’s support, saying: “It was really challenging, really hard but with you guys I was able to make it through.” His aim, he added, had simply been to get through the free skate “in one piece.”

Skating last after leading the short program, just as he did in Milan, Malinin landed five high-scoring quadruple jumps but not his pioneering quad axel, a jump he didn’t attempt at the Olympics.

Malinin said that he came to the worlds with a fresh mindset after all the pressure from the Olympics was over. His goal was to “enjoy every moment on the ice and just have fun out there.”

“Going here I felt like there was almost no pressure at all,” he said. “I just completely blocked out all the expectations, all the pressure that people put on me and was really here to escape for myself and enjoy every moment of these world championships.”

Malinin scored 218.11 in the free skate for a total 329.40, far ahead of silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama of Japan on 306.67. Another Japanese skater, Shun Sato, was third on 288.54.

Kagiyama beat his personal-best free skate score but still had to make do with a fourth career world championship silver in a career which includes four Olympic silvers and five total worlds medals, but no gold from either event. He still embraced Malinin after his skate and they jumped together in celebration.

Being second again was not a big deal for Kagiyama.

After a disappointing performance at the free skate at the Olympics, he said “I came here solely focused on finishing the event with a satisfying performance,” adding that “I’m relieved that I was finally able to achieve that goal.”

In a showcase of top-level skating, there was no podium spot for France’s Adam Siao Him Fa, who had been in second after the short program but dropped to fifth overall after a fall. Estonia’s Aleksandr Selevko also fell dropped from third to sixth.

Malinin had no rematch with Mikhail Shaidorov, the skater from Kazakhstan who won the Olympic gold, because he opted against competing again this season.

That’s relatively common in figure skating for gold medal winners who face a rush of media and commercial opportunities after a grueling four-year Olympic buildup.

Malinin becomes the first skater to win three consecutive men’s world titles since fellow American Nathan Chen, who achieved the feat in 2018, 2019 and 2021 after the 2020 event was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ice dance was the only event at the world championships where the Milan Cortina Olympic champions were competing, and France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron added a world title to their collection.

The French team scored 138.07 in their free dance for a total 230.81, both personal bests, to cap a successful and often controversial first season together.

Olympic bronze medalists Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada are world silver medalists three years running after scoring 211.52.

Olympic silver medalists Madison Chock and Evan Bates withdrew before the championships but Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik still took a surprise bronze for the U.S. on 209.20.

That was decided when British pair Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson picked up a rare two-point deduction for an “illegal element/movement” and dropped behind the Americans. Exactly what was wrong wasn’t immediately explained.

Kaori Sakamoto won women’s gold on Friday for a fourth world title before heading into retirement. Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin won pairs for Germany on Thursday.

Ellingworth reported from Duesseldorf, Germany.

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