2 months ago
Ilia Malinin bounced backmost from his disappointment astatine this year’s Winter Olympics by starring aft nan short programme astatine nan fig skating world championships connected Thursday.
Malinin, sporting a caller haircut, gave fans what they expected from nan defending two-time world champion astatine O2 Arena successful Prague.
The capacity showed nan Olympic nonaccomplishment was down him. He will spell to Saturday’s free skate pinch a monolithic lead of much than 9 points aft a personal-best 111.29 people successful nan short program.
Known arsenic nan Quad God, Malinin opened pinch a quad flip and a operation of quad lutz and a triple toed loop. The only skater to person successfully landed a quad axel successful title performed only a triple type of his trademark jump.
French skater Adam Siao Him Fa nailed a cleanable quad toed loop successful operation pinch a triple toed loop positive a quad salchow for 101.85 points. Aleksandr Selevko of Estonia was a astonishment 3rd aft a individual champion 96.49.
Malinin helped nan US triumph nan squad gold successful Milan and was heavy favored to triumph individual golden pinch an unrivaled program. His five-point lead complete Kagiyama and Siao aft nan short programme seemed insurmountable. But successful 1 of nan biggest upsets successful fig skating history, Malinin fell doubly and made different glaring mistakes successful a disastrous free skate, falling from first to eighth place.
The 21-year-old said he succumbed to nan unit astatine his first Games. “The nerves conscionable went, truthful overwhelming,” he said astatine nan time, “and particularly going into that starting pose, I conscionable felt for illustration each nan traumatic moments of my life really conscionable started flooding my head. So galore antagonistic thoughts that flooded into location and I could not grip it.”
Olympic champion Mikhail Shaidorov from Kazakhstan is skipping this week’s competition.
