Malinin bounces back from Olympic collapse with third straight world skating gold
American Ilia Malinin's programme included five quadruple jumps (Michal Cizek) US figure skating star Ilia Malinin won a third straight men's gold at the world championships on Saturday, one month after his spectacular meltdown at the Winter Olympics. Malinin led all the way to take the title with a winning margin of 22. 73 points over Japanese rival Yuma Kagiyama after the free skate.
Japan's Shun Sato took bronze. "It's done. That's it," said an emotional Malinin after his performance in Prague.
"My expectation was to finish my free programme in one piece and that has definitely happened. " The 21-year-old told reporters that he felt a lot of "relief" now the season had ended, especially on a positive note. "I had a different mindset coming here," he added.
"All I wanted to do was escape from myself and enjoy every moment on the ice and have fun, and that is exactly what I did. " The world championships in the Czech capital are taking place just a month after the Olympics where Malinin was the overwhelming favourite. Undefeated for more than two years, the star of skating led after the short programme before crumbling in the free skate to finish eighth.
Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov won the Olympic gold ahead of Kagiyama and Sato, who took silver and bronze respectively. Shaidorov skipped the world championships. In his first competition since, Malinin took a 9.