Ilia Malinin soars into figure skating worlds unburdened by expectation
The 'Quad God" performed with more fluidity and confidence than he showed in Milan, dominating the world championships men's short program.
PRAGUE — When last we left our story, Ilia Malinin was standing on the Milan Olympic ice in utter disbelief, his face buried in his hands. The favorite of all sports favorites had fallen twice and otherwise stumbled across the ice in a shocking four-minute meltdown, not only losing the gold medal but dropping all the way to eighth place. Move ahead 41 days and 550 miles to the northeast.
Malinin was standing on the ice again, this time at the world championships. He had just finished his short program, his first competition since the Olympics, and a smile was exploding across his face. While this wasn’t the troublesome long program — that big hurdle comes Saturday — this was the first test of his post-Olympics life , and he passed it magnificently.
Performing with more fluidity and confidence than he showed at any moment in Milan, Malinin soared into first place with a 9. 44-point lead, which is the largest men’s short program margin at the world championships since 2019. He received the highest score he has ever been given for a short program: 111.
29 points. There were no falls, no stumbles, no mistakes. He nailed it all.