Ilia Malinin returns from a nightmare at the Winter Olympics with her third world title in a row

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’ hitting one big jump after another and a backflip for good measure, to retain his world championship title for the third year in a row on Saturday.

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

He praised the support from the public, saying: “It was really a challenge, very difficult, but with you I was able to make it.” His goal, he added, had simply been to get through the free skate “very whole.”

Finally, ice skating lead the short programAs in Milan, Malinin made five high-scoring quadruple jumps, but not his own groundbreaking quad-axela jump he did not make at the Olympic Games.

Malinin said he came to the world with a fresh outlook after all the pressure of the Olympics was over. His goal was to “enjoy every moment on the ice and just have fun off it.”

“When I went here, I felt like there was almost no pressure at all,” he said. “I just blocked 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 of 329.40, well ahead of silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama of Japan with 306.67. Another Japanese skater, Shun Sato, came third with 288.54.

Kagiyama improved his personal best free skate score, but still had to make do with a fourth world championship silver in a career that included four Olympic silver medals and five world medals, but no gold from either event. He still hugged Malinin after his skate and they jumped together to celebrate.

Coming second again was no problem for Kagiyama.

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

In a display of top-level skating, there was no podium spot for Frenchman Adam Siao Him Fa, who had finished second after the short program but dropped to fifth in the overall standings after a fall. Estonian Aleksandr Selevko also dropped from third to sixth place.

Malinin did not have a rematch with Mikhail Shaidorov, the Olympic gold-winning skater from Kazakhstan, as he opted not to compete again this season.

That’s relatively common in figure skating for gold medalists who face a flood of media and commercial opportunities after a grueling four-year Olympic build-up.

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

Ice dancing was the only event at the world championships in which Milan Cortina’s Olympic champions competed, with France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron adding a world title to their collection.

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

Olympic bronze medalists Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada are world silver medalists three years in a row 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 US at 209.20.

That was decided when the British duo Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson received a rare two-point deduction for an “illegal element/movement” and fell behind the Americans. What exactly was wrong was not immediately explained.

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

Ellingworth reported from Dusseldorf, Germany.

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