Malinin unstoppable is repeated as world champion with six quadruple jumps | Figure skating

He was called the Quad God, the great skating innovator, the next Olympic champion. Saturday evening, in front of a roaring crowd at TD Garden, Ilia Malinin formalized him: he is again the best artistic skater in the world.

The 20 -year -old American spoke of another sensational free skating to close the world figure skating championships, winning a record of six quadruple jumps by walking in his second consecutive world title. His best total score of the 318.56 season won him a gap of 31.09 points away from the Kazakhstan Mikhail Shaidorov, which captured money with a better personal routine, and Japan Yuma Kagiyama, which went from second place to bronze after a long -term program.

The triumph of Malinin crowned a historic weekend for the United States, which won three of the four gold medals proposed for the first time in a world of figure skating. He joined the newly crowned female champion Alysa Liu and the winners of Ice Dance Madison Chock and Evan Bates at the top of the podium – a dominant projection that sends a clear message before the winter games of next year in Milan.

Skating the last one not being a vampire of the post-metalcore American group falling in reverse, Malinin opened with a quadruple flip before winning the mythical quad axel-the jump of four and a half which turned out to be beyond the range of the most ambitious talents in sport. From there, he added a quad, quad lutz, quad toe and quad salchow loop, the last two in combination. Only a Lutz halfway from the program prevented him from trying the seven quads.

The Quad Axel was only landed 15 times in competition after Saturday, all by the native of Northern Virginia, since he succeeded in the US Classic two years ago at the age of 17.

Malinin punctuated the programs with an apparently effortless backflip – him and the fourth place of Adam Siao Him Fa de France have become the first skaters to win the recently legalized move during a world championship in almost 50 years – before hitting its final pose to a standing ovation from another crowd at the Boston Buins of the NHL.

“I just fought for each element and I am happy to have it,” said Malinin.

The performance extended the Victoires de Malinin victories sequence with nine consecutive events dating from December 2023. Its margin of victory was the second largest in the history of men under the modern notation system, dragging only Nathan Chen from 47.63 points in 2018.

Of the six quads, Malinin landed on Saturday, none made it happier than the loop – a jump that had given it adjustments all season. “I feel very relieved to have been able to put out this performance as I tried,” he said. “It was not what I had planned and of course, there are a few minor things that I can continue to improve, but overall, I feel quite confident and I am really happy to finally get the quad loop this season.”

Malinin, the son of former Olympians from Uzbekistan who moved to Virginia, was left controversial from the American Olympic team in 2022 despite second place for nationals. Since the landing of the first quad axel in competition later that year, he redefined the technical ceiling of sport – and continues to raise it.

Behind him, Shaidorov delivered better free skating with four clean quads, including a triple Axel-Euler-Quad Salchow combination, to his moonlight to master the first world medal in Kazakhstan in any artistic skating discipline. The 20 -year -old man from Almaty, who also won four continents in February, exceeded Kagiyama after the Japanese star had trouble staying straight through his jumps.

“If someone had asked me at the start of the season I would be on the world podium, I would never have believed it,” said Shaidorov. “The season was difficult, but at the same time, it was a breakthrough, and I’m just very happy to be on a global podium with skaters as large as Ilia and Yuma, and now I just want to keep moving forward.”

Kagiyama, the reigning Olympic silver medalist and the world silver medalist in the world, entered the free skate at only 3.32 points behind Malinin. But falls on his salchow and a step on the triple axel during his flamenco routine to Ameksa and Romanza derailed all gold shot. His score of 278,19 was sufficient for bronze, its fourth major international medal.

France Kevin Aymoz (272.52) and the beginner of the World Shun Sato World Championship (270.56) arrived in fifth and sixth respectively. Among the other Americans, Jason Brown has delivered a clean and expressive program that earned him eighth place and a standing ovation. Andrew Torgashev finished 22nd after a difficult free skating, but together, they assured that the American team will send the maximum of three men to the 2026 Olympic Games.

For all the excitement surrounding the last segment of the championships on Saturday, a current of sorrow ran under the competition all week. Wednesday evening, TD Garden paused for a 20 -minute tribute to the 28 members of the skating community who died in the January plane accident near Washington DC. Many victims – young skaters, coaches and parents – returned from a national development camp. Among them, many who trained in the Malinin ice rink in Virginia.

“They are still in my heart,” he said earlier this week. “I wanted to skate for them. I hope I made them proud. “

Earlier on Saturday, Madison Chock and Evan Bates became the first ice dancers to win three consecutive world championships in almost three decades, holding the Canadian Frenemias of longtime Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson took bronze, becoming the first British to win a medal in the worlds in any discipline since Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won the last of their four consecutive ice dance titles in 1984.