BOSTON — Ilia Malinin won a second straight world title Saturday night, this one by a larger margin than the first.
But, despite his utter dominance of men’s singles skating, Malinin felt upset that he had left something undone.
That’s why he whacked the ice in frustration after finishing a free skate that left him happy because it brought another gold medal but disappointed because he fell short of his goal.
This season, Malinin wanted to further enhance his reputation as the Quadg0d by doing an unprecedented free skate in which all seven jumping passes began with a successful quad, and they were to include all six different types of the jump.
The skating gods apparently still think that is hubris.
He now has tried it unsuccessfully three times.
“It’s a pretty decent challenge that I’ve given myself,” he said.
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Malinin managed to land six quads, but two of them were a quarter turn short of a full rotation, and he doubled the seventh. He did cleanly land the quad loop, a jump on which he fell hard at the U.S. Championships.
But that’s the conundrum Malinin has created for himself at age 20 with his otherworldly jumping ability. Anything less than the unbelievable in every performance can make it seem humdrum to a skating world aware of what he has already done – and it leaves him annoyed.
“I really want to nail this down, and I think I’ll spend this offseason trying to master it, because I think it is my perfect layout for the Olympics,” he said. “I really want it to be something I’m able to complete effortlessly and efficiently.”
Before another sellout crowd at TD Garden, Malinin’s triumph finished a week in which Team USA made history by winning three gold medals at worlds for the first time. Alysa Liu and ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates got the others.
“I’m very happy to be one of the three,” Malinin said.
The most electric free skate performance Saturday night came from another 20-year-old, Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, who made some jump history while finishing second to Malinin by 31.09 points.
And Shaidorov also upped his ante to do it.
Earlier in the season, Shaidorov became the first person to land a combination that began with a triple and ended with a quad. This time, he did it with a more difficult quad (salchow instead of toe loop), preceded by a triple Axel and half loop.
It’s the Malinin effect.
“Ilia is really motivating me,” Shaidorov said, through a translator. “I want to be competitive.”
When Malinin took the ice as last of the 24 skaters, he had a huge margin for error because Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, just three points back after the short program, had a badly flawed free skate and barely hung onto third. Shaidorov had been 16 points behind after the short.
Malinin resisted any thoughts of doing an easier program.
“Until I land them all, I wouldn’t want to cut back,” Malinin said.
He totaled 318.56 points, well under his 333.76 at the 2024 worlds, when Malinin landed an unprecedented six clean quads and had a world record free skate score.
Teammate Jason Brown, in his seventh worlds, rallied from his worst placement ever after a worlds short program, 12th, moving up to eighth with a classic Brown performance in the free skate.
Brown had the effortless flow needed to interpret the intimations of infinity in the Arvo Part composition, ...
