Ilia Malinin repeated as world figure skating champion, landing a record-tying six quadruple jumps in the free skate. Malinin totaled 318.56 points to win comfortably by 31.09 over Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, who achieved a personal best with four quads.
Malinin’s victory caps an undefeated season and marks the second-largest margin of victory in men’s history under a 21-year-old scoring system. Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama dropped to bronze after several jumping errors in his free skate, while Americans Jason Brown and Andrew Torgashev placed eighth and 22nd respectively.
Malinin’s impressive performance included all six types of quads: flip, Axel, Lutz, loop, toe loop, and Salchow. He also doubled a planned quad Lutz, his only significant error in the program. The Russian skater hopes to land seven quads in future competitions.
A U.S. team that wins three men’s quota spots could send a full team of three entries in all four Olympic figure skating disciplines for the first time since 1984. Malinin, who is one of two skaters to achieve six quads, can make his Olympic debut next February.
The win by American skater Ilia Malinin marks a significant milestone in figure skating history, with every American man who won the world title the year before the Olympics going on to win Olympic gold.
Source: https://www.nbcsports.com/olympics/news/ilia-malinin-world-figure-skating-championships-2025