Ilia Malinin completes redemption arc with third straight world figure skating championship
ilia malinin completed a swift redemption on Saturday afternoon ET, claiming a third straight world figure skating championship at Prague’s O2 Arena after a commanding free skate. The 21-year-old American scored 218. 11 in the free program to finish on 329. 40 points, well clear of Japanese rivals Yumi Kagiyama and Shun Sato. The victory closed a rapid turnaround a month after an unexpected Olympic collapse in Milan and made him the first man since Nathan Chen to win three consecutive world titles.
Dominant free skate and final scores
Malinin entered the final with a commanding short-program lead—his personal-best 111. 29 left him more than nine points ahead after Thursday’s short program ET—and he delivered in the long program. Skating last, he produced a free score of 218. 11 for a total of 329. 40, finishing nearly 23 points ahead of the next best total. Yumi Kagiyama placed second with 306. 67 and Shun Sato third with 288. 54. Canada’s Stephen Gogolev finished fourth on 281. 04, followed by France’s Adam Siao Him Fa (271. 56) and Estonia’s Aleksandr Selevko (270. 42). Americans Andrew Torgashev and Jacob Sanchez placed 10th and 12th, respectively.
The program packed difficulty: Malinin landed five quadruple jumps, including a quad toe–triple toe combination and a backflip late in the program. It was the absence of the errors that had marred his Olympic free skate that defined this performance, with clean execution and composure cited repeatedly in the arena reaction.
Ilia Malinin’s Redemption on Ice
Ilia Malinin, the 21-year-old American, spoke directly to the crowd after his victory. “I definitely felt very pushed and loved from the crowd, ” he said, crediting the audience for carrying him through the program. He added candidly about his approach: “My expectation was to leave the long program in one piece and I definitely think that happened. “
On the emotional arc from the Olympics to worlds, Malinin acknowledged the challenge of recovering from high-profile mistakes. “It was really challenging and really hard, ” he told the crowd, adding that the support helped him make it through. That composure, paired with his trademark jumping arsenal, defined a performance that left little room for doubt.
Quick context
A month earlier in Milan, Malinin had entered the Olympics as the overwhelming favorite but fell twice in the free skate and finished eighth. The absence of Olympic champion Mikhail Shaidorov from worlds left the spotlight squarely on Malinin, who now becomes the first man to win three consecutive world titles since Nathan Chen did so in 2018, 2019 and 2021 after the 2020 event was canceled.
What’s next
With the world title secured on Saturday afternoon ET, attention will shift to how ilia malinin builds on this moment and the sport’s calendar ahead. For now, he leaves Prague’s O2 Arena having turned a recent setback into a clear statement of technical mastery and renewed resilience.
