THREE IN A ROW—AND I’M NOT HOLDING BACK.’ THEN ILIA MALININ WALKED ON THE ICE, TOOK TOTAL CONTROL, AND DELIVERED A PERFORMANCE SO DOMINANT IT LEFT THE ENTIRE ARENA IN SHOCK.”
The USA figure skater overcame the bad memories of his free skate at Milano Cortina 2026 to win the segment in Prague and his third world title. Japan’s Kagiyama Yuma and Sato Shun repeated their Olympic placements, coming from behind to jump onto the podium with stellar skates.
Ilia Malinin finished his campaign for a third straight world title with a roar – in every sense of the word.
Standing on the ice in his finishing pose, the USA figure skater screamed while pumping his fists, the epic journey at his redemption 2026 ISU World Figure Skating Championships complete – a stark contrast to his pose at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 where he finished the skate covering his face with his hands.
It was also a different Malinin who sat in the kiss-and-cry in Prague on Saturday (28 March) to receive his scores: 218.11 points in the free and 329.40 overall in men’s singles. As the words “world champion 2026” flashed on the board behind him, a smile – at first one of relief, and then of joy – spread across his face.
While it was more than 20 points under his personal best from the 2025 Grand Prix Final, where he landed a historic seven quads in a single program, what mattered most was that Malinin’s roller-coaster season of historic records, Olympic triumph, and heartbreak, ended on a win.
“This was probably one of the easier world championships I’ve been to, just because of the amount of pressure I had at the Olympics and going here, I felt like it was almost no pressure at all,” Malinin said. “I’ve just completely blocked out all the expectations, all the pressure that people put on me, and I was really here just to skate for myself and enjoy every moment of these world championships, and I think I did exactly that.”
The 21-year-old skater took a more conservative approach at the 2026 Worlds in Prague, Czechia, as compared to his Grand Prix Final heroics in December. Opting for a five-quad program, Malinin focused on executing all elements cleanly and achieved that with the exception of a quarter under-rotation on a quad Lutz in a jump combination.
He also landed an independent quad Lutz, along with a quad flip, quad toe loop, and quad Salchow.
Two days earlier, Malinin had set a personal best of 111.29 points in the short program, adding nearly nine-tenths to the previous mark he set en route to his second world title at the home 2025 World Championships in Boston.
“This was a competition where I wanted to just relieve all the pressure from the Olympics, to just come here with a fresh new mindset and just enjoy everything that I love about this sport,” Malinin said.
“My whole idea for this whole competition was, ‘It’s the last competition this season, and then you will be able to relax and give yourself a new, fresh start for the next, upcoming four years’.”
