Kagiyama: More than Silver

Silver this. Silver that. That’s the colour linked perennially and always to Yuma Kagiyama’s name.

But that pile of shiny metal bits doesn’t  come close to explaining what the world saw in the men’s free skate at the world figure skating championships in Prague on March 28. Kagiyama’s  free skate was epic.  Homeric. Classy. The ultimate free skate. One of the best of all time. Almost indefinable by words. You had to witness it.

The 22-year-old Japanese skater gave a splashy clinic to the world about what skating is really all about – not backflips and cartwheels and twists, and other acrobatics – but edges, curves, quads landed with a soft knee, almost noiseless,  intricate and emotional footwork, great spins,  quiet charisma in spades, all with speed that comes from nowhere. Clean skate. Best skate of the year.  Best ever. Nothing was lacking. It was time to reach for the tissues.

Kagiyama skated to Christopher Tin’s version of “Turandot,” crafted especially for his needs: loud choruses as he came to a jump, softer in the quiet parts. There had never been a project like this in skating. Never a program put together this way.

Tin himself – a two-time Grammy Award winner – was in the Olympic audience in Milan watching, his wife a figure skating fan. Two years ago, Tin had been asked to compose a new ending to Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, left unfinished when he died in 1924. Tin brought fresh energy to it, give it a modern touch that grew organically out of the original. A masterpiece. When it debuted at the Kennedy Centre in 2024, the entire run was sold out before the first show.  And then he adapted it for Kagiyama.

Tin and Kagiyama met for the first time after that Olympic free skate. Worlds colliding. Nobody felt it but them and their inner circles. The earth shook, metaphorically.

Kagiyama’s choreographer, the inestimable Lori Nichol, had heard Tin’s orchestral and choral compositions and was a fan. It was no small thing that two artistic geniuses got together to create a platform for another artistic genius: Kagiyama, small in stature, large in everything else that matters.

Prague was a special place for such a performance. Kagiyama’s father, Masakazu, had competed there the previous time a world championship had been held there 33 years ago in 1993. So had Ilia Malinin’s mother, Tatiana Malinina, who had competed for Uzbekistan and finished only 37^th as her career was just beginning.  Neither Kagiyama nor Malinin had really realized that history until they were in Prague.

Kagiyama’s father, his coach, stood at rinkside in Prague, now walking with a cane. When his son finished, he stood in tears. He had finished eighth in 1993. And he had created this whirlwind of nature.

But it was Malinin who took the gold, leaving Kagiyama with another silver. Malinin is a bird of another feather.

There has never been another jumper like Malinin. Malinin astonished the world when he landed a seven-quad free skate at the Grand Prix Final last December. Of course, now, he is expected to live up to it. One of the jumps was a rare quad Axel. He’s the only skater to manage one – and do it with six other quads in a program.

Other skaters, including Canada’s Stephen Gogolev who finished a cracking fourth with a collection of consistent quads, say they want to master one. Others say they don’t, afraid it would “kill” them.

It’s not easy. There’s something about that quad Axel. There’s a men’s skater in  Russia somewhere who is landing them in practice. The next day, it is said, he is so sore, he cannot even do triples. Can you imagine, not only doing a quad Axel alone, but with a slate of others under pressure, in a scored routine. Some would be too exhausted to finish.

For one thing, Malinin can jump as high off the ice as an NBA player on a court. But in a quad, there is a need to stabilize the body up in the air, not easy with all sorts of G-forces pulling at you as you rotate up in that space. Perhaps Malinin just has  amazing core strength to do it.  The takeoff for an Axel is also more difficult than for other quads. And Malinin seems to have the stamina to finish a program with all that energy expended on all quads.

There are so many videos flying around of Malinin doing crazy quad combinations in practice, just for fun: landing a fully-rotated quad Axel with arm up, like a Rippon (that arm up alters the centre of gravity): videos of him landing a quad Axel in combination with other quads, before and after the Axel and then there’s this: a quad Axel – quad Axel combo.

Malinin can also do quads from different entrances: in Prague, he landed a quad flip from a spreadeagle. He can adjust his energy and body to get exactly the height he needs for any of these jumps. It’s uncanny, and he’s good at it.

During the free skate, Malinin said he opted not to do the quad Axel or the difficult quad loop because “This is the time for me to relax and enjoy the last competition of the season.” The Olympics wasn’t so relaxing.

All of these quads have sacrificed his components. He does fewer transitions now, especially in the free skate. He will do a backflip or a strawberry twist during a choreographic sequence, and the GOEs flood in But the truth of the matter is that Malinin’s steps and turns are very weak and even sloppy. Aside from a spreadeagle into a quad flip, his programs are empty.  The quality of his steps are bad. His edges are flat and shallow, there’s not a lot of nice long curving from one step to another or into an element, because of all the quads he does. His spin positions sometimes seem undefined.

Ironically, Malinin’s short-program step sequence received maximum points  across the board, with all but one judger giving him a plus-5 for it. He got 5.85 for those steps,

Kagiyama got a mix of 4s and 5s for 5.63 points for his tour de force of steps. Both step sequences are so different.

In general,  men’s skating has declined in these component-strong areas. Nobody can spin anymore. They don’t get high levels, or high GOE on them. Some spins crawl, slow as a snail. Some skaters have no flexibility. Positions are terrible. Toes aren’t pointed.

But the thing is: Mailinin gets just as high component marks as Kagiyama, and it seems to have to do more with the number of quads he does, than the quality of his steps or spins.

Skaters seem to get higher GOEs the longer they are in the system. They get higher GOEs if they skate at the end of the list. They get higher GOE’s because of their reputation. Their GOEs are tied to their technical mark.

In the free skate, Malinin got 95.04 in components (123.97 in tech.)

Kagiyama got 96.57 in components, (116.30 in tech.)

In reality, they are not close in components. Why don’t scores reflect this?

At the end of the free skate, Malinin had 218.11, Kagiyama only 5.25 points back in 212.87 for that incredible free skate. Fair component marks should have made Kagiyama the winner of the free skate.

(Malinin didn’t do a seven-quad free skate in Prague, saying he didn’t need it. His quad Axel was only a triple and he did a later triple flip instead of a quad flip. The crazy part was: technical callers called his triple Axel a quad, and his triple flip as a quad flip – assuming or following the program content sheet. They called the second quad flip a repeat (without a combo), because he had already done a quad flip. The elements were adjusted later and they appear correctly on the protocol.)

And oops. Malinin slightly under rotated his quad Lutz in a series late in the program.

In all, Malinin did five quads, while Kagiyama did three.ds.

On the component side of things, Malinin received  five perfect marks of 10, all for presentation.  Kagiyama had six marks of 10, scattered over the component categories of composition, presentation and skating skills.  Malinin had an average skating skill mark of 9.39 while Kagiyama had 9.68. Kagiyama’s presentation average was very slightly less than Malinin’s.Hard to fathom from what we saw on ice in the men’s final.

Malinin actually doesn’t need high components to win. Usually his jump repertoire will give him the win anyway. But it’s crazy to think that Kagiyama, for all he does, gets lower component marks than Mailinin. Doesn’t seem right.

The same thing happened in the short program, although Kagiyama dropped to sixth place when his blade caught a rut in the ice, he did a waxel instead of an 8-point triple Axel, and fell. All told, Kagiyama lost about 10 points, plus a deduction for the fall.  Malinin scored 111.29 in the short program while Kagiyama scored 93.80. which could have been 103 without the fall.

But in the short program, their components were also similar: Malinin had event-high 45.24 points while Kagiyama had 45.73, granted components could be lower because of the fall. But Adam Siao Him Fa, an artistic soul and tech whiz, got components similar to Malinin’s (45.67).Malinin’s skills other than jumps are not as strong as those of Siao Him Fa.

People are still stinging over the fact that Korean Junwhan Cha received only a 42 for components at the Olympics  while he is wildly and profoundly artistic – and his quads are things of beauty. Cha did not compete in Prague. He has been fighting injuries for years.

Kagiyama, sitting in the leader’s chair, applauded everyone who skated after him.

Malinin won easily with a total of 329.40, 22.73 points ahead of Kagiyama’s 306.67. The score floored Kagiyama: few skaters have surpassed the 300-mark.

Shun Sato, third at the Olympics, soldiered on to finish third in Prague with 288.54.

But the breakout skater this season appears to be Canadian champion Stephen Gogolev, who came from absolutely nowhere to be fifth at the Olympics, and fourth at the world championships, 7.50 points away from a bronze medal.  Gogolev finished 10 points ahead of one of the favourites Siao Him Fa, who he knows well from their connection to choreographer Benoit Richaud.

It’s Gogolev’s first world championship and his free skate score of 186.37 had him saying “Oh wow,” in his understated way.  He finished with 281.94.

Gogolev landed three quads , with level fours in everything. Kagiyama gave Gogolev a standing ovation from his perch in the leader’s chair.

In fact the huge crowd in the O2 arena gave Gogolev a standing ovation.

His short program score of 94.38 was a personal best.

“Me being healthy this year played into [consistency],” Gogolev said. “No significant injuries held me back. Only working hard and consistently training every day. Also I began working quite close with Benoit Richarud. These are the biggest factors.”

He plans to attend Richaud’s summer camp again this year. He has only just begun.

And although he’s been basically out of skating for three years, he’s still only 21.  He has earned Canada’s men two spots next year for the world championships – for the first time in years.

Malinin will take part in a Stars On Ice tour with both Kagiyama and Sato over the next two weeks. Maybe it will be good to get away. His Quadgod stardom has taken its toll in ways other than bombing at the Games to finish 8^th.

During his week in Prague, Malnin was hounded by people who wanted to get too close to him.

“Fans have crossed every possible boundary for the sake of brief personal access to Ilia Malinin,” said a release. “This includes mobbing him in non-competition spaces, such as airports, hotels, elevator.”

Some have even camped outside of his accommodation overnight for days. He feels harassed, his managers said.

“No level of admiration, excitement or emotional attachment justifies invading someone’s personal space or following them outside of official settings.”

He has taken on the stature of a rock star. Or royalty.