Ilia Malinin, the Virginia teenager whose once-imaginable plethora of quadruple jumps have captivated the figure skating world during a meteoric rise to the top of the sport, won his first world championship Saturday night with a history-making free skate at the Bell Center in Montreal. .
Skating to a crowd favorite from Succession, the American prodigy drilled a quad axel, quad lutz, quad loop, quad salchow, another quad lutz combined with a triple flip, a quad toe loop combined with a triple, and then added a triple Lutz-triple axel combination to finish with a world record score of 227.79.
His combined score of 333.76 points was more than 24 points better than Yuma Kagiyama, the Olympic silver medalist from Japan who landed three quads but tumbled to the ice after landing a triple axel halfway through his program.
Frenchman Adam Siao Him Fa, who skated free after a disappointing 19th place in Thursday’s short program, took the bronze after landing four quads on Saturday despite an illegal backflip that did not affect his position.
Malinia dethroned two-time defending champion Shoma Uno of Japan, who fell to fourth after falling on his attempt at a quad loop and quad flip to open his skate.
More to follow.