Malinin and Sakamoto seek solace at figure skating worlds as Olympic champions absent
US star Ilia Malinin will be seeking redemption at the world figure skating championships in Prague after his shocking collapse at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics last month (WANG Zhao) US star Ilia Malinin returns to the ice seeking the solace of a third straight world figure skating title after his shocking collapse at the Winter Olympics, while Japan's Kaori Sakamoto targets a fourth women's gold starting Wednesday. French ice dancers Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry are the only Olympic figure skating champions competing in Prague a month after the Milan-Cortina Games. Olympic men's champion Mikhail Shaidorov and women's gold medallist Alysa Liu are both skipping the final event of the season.
Kazakh Shaidorov pulled off one of the biggest shocks of the Winter Olympics as highly-fancied Malinan fell to his first defeat in over two years. The 21-year-old, known as the "Quad God" for his quadruple-jumping skills, will be looking for redemption after tumbling to an eighth-place finish. Malinin admitted his first Olympic experience was "so stressful, so much pressure".
"But we have to get up and keep going no matter what. "It's not the last of me. " Yuma Kagiyama, a four-time world medallist, and Japanese teammate Shun Sato won silver and bronze at the Olympics and are in the mix for the podium along with France's Adam Siao Him Fa.
In Milan, Sakamoto was in tears as she took silver behind American Liu, who had also ended the Japanese star's three-year reign as world champion last year. The world championships will be the final event for 25-year-old Sakamoto and she wants a golden farewell. Sakamoto has unfinished business after the "frustration" of missing Olympic gold by just 1.
89 points. "I know I left something out there," Sakamoto said. A Japanese podium sweep is possible in the women's event with world bronze medallist Chiba Mone finishing fourth in Milan.