Ilia Malinin: A Win for the Ages

MONTREAL

There was a moment in his free skate on a snowy night in Montreal when Ilia Malinin knew, despite everything weighing on his mind over the past couple of weeks, that “it was my time.”

Time for him to deliver an explosive routine the likes few had ever seen. Time to put illness, and boot problems and lack of training out of his mind and trust what he knew: how to deliver six clean, ripping, effortless quads that, at the moment, no other male skater can match.

This is Ilia Malinin, not at his best, but at his best mental toughness. He debated on whether he should even attend the event this week. He decided to come “at the last minute,” he said.

All of this, of course, led to a gold medal at the world figure skating championships. Malinin, a fresh-faced 19,  left his competitors in the dust, winning with 333.76 points, 24.11 points more than silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama.

French skater Adam Siao Him Fa won the bronze medal almost in impossible fashion, after finishing 19^th in the short program. He actually finished second in the free skate. It was the highest leap up the men’s ladder in an event since Nathan Chen finished 17^th at the short program at the Olympics and ended up in fifth place.

Saio Him Fa knew about the Nathan leap before he took to the ice.

But nobody could match Malinin, who finished almost 21 points ahead of Siao Him Fa in the long program. Malinin won the free skate with a world record score of 227.79 points, outdoing Nathan Chen’s previous mark of 224.92 set at the Grad Prix Final in 2019.

Chen still owns the highest total score of 335.30.

Malinin had the crowd roaring from the time he landed his first four-rotation jump, the quad Axel. Then came the second most difficult jump, the quad Lutz. With ease. Then a very difficult and rare quad loop, and then an easy quad Salchow. This was followed by a jump series beyond belief: a quad Lutz – Euler – triple flip. And then a relatively simple quad toe loop – triple toe loop. Of course all of these jumps come with bonus points.

That crazy quad Lutz – Euler – triple flip thing? Malinin got 4.27 bonus points for it, meaning that he earned 23.30 points for that one sequence. (Who has ever seen that?)

Then there’s the non-quad that is difficult to get a head around. In the second half of his program, Malinin does a triple Lutz – triple Axel combo. That was worth a measley 1.94 bonus points (GOE), giving him 17.23 for it.

Malinin, the first man to land a quad Axel, earned an incredible 3.93 bonus points for it, ringing up another 16.43 points for that jump alone.

Malinin had seven jump elements, most of which earned him more than 13 points each.

The large crowd – made up of many skating clubs, so therefore knowledgeable skating people – knew they were witnessing history. They cheered at every big element, particularly in the second half. And they began to stand and applaud 10-15 seconds before he even finished skating.

When Malinin finished, he seemed overwhelmed by the reception, and dropped softly onto his back, on the ice, covering his face. His father/coach Roman Skorniakov stood by the boards, bellowing and swinging a jacket like a top.

It was mythic stuff. Malinin said he made his decision to include the magical quad Axel in his routine at the very last minute. The jump hadn’t given him confidence in the warmup.  But when he set foot on the ice again to skate, he decided otherwise, that he wanted to end the season with the jump one last time. “So I just attacked it 100 per cent and I am glad I was able to achieve it,” he said.

Other thoughts went through his head, too. It was either going to be the best skate of his life “or it could go terribly wrong,” he said.

He focused on keeping his mind under control, bust his buttons with confidence and try to attack everything.

He could hear more and more cheers from the audience, especially after his footwork sequence in the second half of the routine. He felt the energy.

He just kept going and going, in a zone. “I didn’t even realize what was going on,” he said.

It was an amazing feeling to hear the wild roar of the crowd at the end of the program, he said. But he still had a couple of elements to do. And he intended to deliver them.

“After that , it was so amazing to me that I couldn’t stand,” he said. “It was that emotional to me.”

The others were left wondering how they could defeat this otherworldly guy.

Kagiyama said he tried to put it all out there as much as he could. He was satisfied with the score. But also disappointed.

“What I realized is that try as I might, I probably would not have been able to win this competition,” Kagiyama said through translation. “This really brings me to think about planning very thoroughly for next season and all the way to the Olympics so that I can better myself.”

Saio Him Fa said he was impressed by Malinin’s output of six clean quads all in one program, but it motivates him to want more.

Kagiyama’s  effort was remarkable in that he missed the previous season with an injury and has gradually been building up his jumping ability and performance elements. The progression has been faster than he thought possible this season. In the free skate on Saturday, he landed a quad flip, along with two easier quads, the toe loop and the Salchow.

Siao Him Fa threw fear into Kagiyama when he watched the Frenchman skate early (because of finishing only 19^thin the short program.)

Saio Him Fa came out of the gate like a cannon, landing four quads, the first one being a quad Lutz.

He said he went through a lot of emotions – disappointment, frustration, anger at himself – after the disastrous short program.

But with the help of his supporters, he felt he couldn’t let any mistakes go in the fee and he wanted to show what he is capable of. In his mind, he was no longer in a competition, only with himself. He decided to go after every jump.

Saio Him Fa sat in the leader’s chair in the “green room” for two hours, most of the time holding the lead. (“It was la bit long. I was starved,” he said.) It wasn’t until Shoma Uno skated, in the final group, earning 172.13 for the free, that Saio Him Fa realized he could actually win a medal.

Uno, who had won two world gold medals and two silvers, finished only sixth in the free and fourth overall, missing the podium by about four points.

There was one wrinkle. At the very last minute, Saio Him Fa decided to throw in an illegal backflip, something he had done in a previous competition. The crowd went wild. But it cost him two points. Saio Him Fa admitted  – when it began to look as if he could win a medal –  it might not have been such a good idea to lose those points. However, he defeated Uno by 3.54 points.

Atop of all the drama sits Malinin. His win means much to him, considering what he has gone through. “The past couple of weeks have been such a mental and physical challenge for me to get through,” he said “Going through the short and the free, I just trusted myself and my training I went through.

“I am so glad to be here on top right now.”