How do you defeat this guy, this Ilia Malinin kid – still only 20 – who seems to have been hatched from another planet and dropped earthward?
Malinin and his mop of tawny hair and an unearthly ability to rotate his body, won his second consecutive world figure skating championship title on Saturday at the TD Gardens in Boston in front of a crowd that went berserk as he skated. And for good reason.
Malinin won the free skate with a crazy score – 208.15 which was 15.36 points ahead of another rare bird, Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan.
Malinin won the gold medal with an overall score of 318.56, which was 31.09 points ahead of Shaidorov. For the first time in history, Malinin landed six different quads in one program.
Not all of them were perfect. Judges gave Malinin a “q” for his quad Axel – Malinin is still the only skater to have landed one in competition – and another on his quad toe loop that was the first part of a never-ending sequence (euler-triple flip) which didn’t show up on the list of planned elements. (Neither did the quad Salchow – triple Axel sequence, worth 19.05 points. That landing wasn’t perfect either, or his points would have been higher still.)
And oops he landed a double Lutz and frowned when he did. It seems that he intended that jump to be another quad Lutz, so that means he was attempting SEVEN quads in one program. He got six in, something he had never done before. So he has room to grow, to get even higher scores.
Malinin landed a quad loop in with the lot and pumped his fist when he did. The rare quad, made more difficult because it takes off and lands on the same foot, was clean and gave Malinin 13.36 points, counting bonuses. A clean one had eluded him before. Altogether, Malinin earned 116.91 technical points.
Yuma Kagiyama, forever the gallant silver medalist of everything, was to have been Malinin’s toughest competitor, deemed the one able to closest touch him. And so he was in the short program, finishing only 3.32 points behind the young American who admits he must watch Kagiyama’s quiet, quick turn of speed, his attention to choreographic detail and stunning footwork.
But in the free skate Saturday, Kagiyama’s wheels came off, unexpectedly. He finished only tenth in the free skate after doubling a quad flip, stepping out of a quad Salchow – usually his best jump – managing only a double toe loop instead of a triple on the end of a quad toe loop, falling on a later quad toe loop, putting a single toe loop on the end of a combination that was to be a triple flip – double toe loop.
Only did he come alive in his footwork section, where he gave everything, a thing of beauty to which others aspire. He finished 37 points behind Malinin technically. Presentation-wise, he was still only 3.59 points behind Malinin. Malinin, with all of his charisma, is still no match for Kagiyama in this department when all things go right.
Kagiyama still won the bronze medal, but he was more concerned that he had let his country down in getting spots for the Olympics. “We really wanted to get three spots,” he said. “And I am so relieved to achieve it.
“Because the first jump set the tone, I was rushing and made a mistake. After that, it was an uphill battle.; Because of my teammates’ stellar effort and my short program, we were able to secure three spots.
Kagiyama was relieved to take the bronze medal. Humble to his fingertips, Kagiyama said he wondered if he even deserved the podium because his free skate was not great. “But I will accept,” he said. “I’m so glad that I didn’t let the team down at the end. Today’s performance was a humbling experience.”
He watched teammate Shun Sato at his first world championships and saw a youngster who delivered, attempting four quads including a Lutz and a flip, and landing three of them. (He missed the easiest one.) Sato finished sixth in the free and sixth overall and was a tour de force in a tough field.
“It reminded me of my first time,” said Kagiyama, who has already won an Olympic silver medal. “I would like to go back to the start and train for the next season and beyond.”
Others took up the case when Kagiyama couldn’t. Adam Siao Him Fa of France, also a threat to Malinin, was only ninth after the short program, falling on his quad Lutz in the short program. As he has done before, Siao Him Fa came roaring back in the free, and earned a technical mark of 101.72 and a free skate score of 188.26. He sat for the longest time in the leader’s chair, pumping a red stuffy lobster with delight.
Siao Him Fa had four quads in his free skate and landed a quad Lutz with a hand down, a deft quad toe loop – triple toe loop, an excellent quad toe loop by itself and a quad Salchow-euler-double Salchow (meant to be a triple Salchow but it came close to the boards in a rink that is narrower than Olympic size.) Nobody knew until later that after Siao Him Fa landed his first Axel, one of his boots broke and “got soft.
“In hindsight, I probably should have gone for a Lutz instead of the second Axel,” he said. “But in the heat of the moment, there was just so much going on in my head.”
He skated to the popular tune of the year: “Dune” and made it an entertaining adventure. Siao Him Fa had missed a lot of time this season with an ankle injury that he reinjured, causing him to withdraw from the Grand Prix Final. When he competed at the European championships in January, he had been back training only three weeks and wasn’t quite ready. The Adam of the world championships was aggressive and very Fa and outscored his previous best season’s score by 13 points.
The surprise silver medalist was 20-year Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, a kid with a boyish face, a set or braces and a shock of hair that does what it wants. And a talent for the big, big quads, put into crazy places.
He had been knocking on the door already. But his performance in Boston was otherworldly. First man to land a triple Axel – euler – quad toe loop (in other words a quad at the END of a combo), Shaidorov opened up with his new version, a triple Axel – euler – quad Salchow. And he did it explosively well. Worth base points of 18.20, judges gave him an extra whopping 3.33 GOE points of bonus for the WAY he did it for a jump total of 21.53 points. Off to a good start.
Shaidorov didn’t stop with the pyrotechnics. Why not an easy quad Lutz, as if he was in an easy chair, drinking hot chocolate? Another 14.62, nothing to sneeze at, including 3.12 GOE..
Then a simple little quad toe by itself. Another 12.21.
Shaidorov saved another quad for the second half. A quad toe-triple toe loop was worth 15.07. Add onto that a 2.71 GOE and another 17.78 poured into his pocket. As he skated, you could see the ticker at the corner of the screen, his score marching closer and closer to Siao Him Fa’s tech score. And at the last flash, he surpassed it.
So there. A final score of 192.70, his season’s best by about 2 ½ points. And then the final score? An impressive 287.47. In any other year than Mailinin’s, that might have been enough to win. He collapsed onto the ice in disbelief after a dream skate, where he didn’t put a foot wrong. IT was a thunderous performance. The crowd responded in kind with a standing ovation, recognizing what they saw.
“I can’t believe it,” said Shaidorov afterwards as coach and Olympic champion Alexei Urmanov surveyed everything, looking over the top of his glasses, all the time, beaming as if he had himself won. He and co-coach Ivan Righini shook each other in delight and Shaidorov, too, between them.
“I didn’t think about a medal when I went out to skate,” he said. “I just wanted to skate the best I can, enjoy all the emotions in this beautiful arena. I wanted to give my maximum. I did not think that I would end the season in this way.”
He won silver almost 10 years to the date that his forbearer and countryman, Denis Ten, won bronze in 2015. Ten was mugged and killed in Kazakhstan several years later.
“For me, it is always very touching to remember Denis,” Shaidorov said. “Because I wish he would be with us and I wish he could talk to me about my success and also where to go further.”
Shaidorov has only just begun. Can he match Malinin in the march to the Olympics? Can he do a quad Axel? (He says maybe new quads for next season, but no quad Axel).
As for Malinin, he said he felt relieved to put out what he did. “It wasn’t what I planned to and of course, there’s a few minor things that I can keep improving but overall, I feel pretty confident and I’m really happy for landing the quad loop finally this season. I finally got this so now I can focus on the rest of the program. The energy in the arena was impressive. It was so wild and chaotic and it really just helped me get to the rest of the programs.”
Malinin said he was more nervous last year when he won his first world title in Montreal – he also hadn’t been feeling well before the free skate and had boot problems – but he said he feels more tired now. “I just fought for every element,” he said.
Ironically, he and Shaidorov stood one-two on the podium at the world junior figure skating championships three years ago. “Obviously, I have changed a lot, starting from my technique and the jumps and also the choreography and the skating skills,” Shaidorov said. “I believe I’m going in the right direction, otherwise I wouldn’t be second in the world right now.”
Shaidorov said that if someone had told him he’d be on the world podium at the beginning of the season, he never would have believed it.
“At the time, if I were to see myself now, I wouldn’t think I was the same person that I was,” Malinin said, remembering that junior podium. “I feel like I’ve changed and developed a lot as a skater, as a person, and I’m really happy for that.”
He figures that the seven-quad layout is his ideal and he will stive for this at the Olympics next year.
He said he mis-stepped on his quad sequence at the beginning of the second half because perhaps he was a little too excited that he had landed the quad loop cleanly.
And for the future, which is born out of what he did in Boston this week? Malinin likes the idea of quad-quad combinations, or to “really play around with how many different quads I can put in a single combination,” he said. He’s not averse to risk.
“Overall, I find joy and I find happiness just trying to go for these, trying to make new ones.”
Aside from the medalists there were many, many more memorable moments from the men’s event.
Roman Sadovsky was the lone Canadian, attempting to get one if not two spots for Canadian men at the Olympics. When he finished 15th in the short program, he succeeded with the first spot. He wasn’t able to get a second, when he finished 13th in the free skate and 14th overall. As the sole Canadian skater, he had to finish in the top 10 to send two to the Olympics. But, shaking off all the consistencies of the past, he skated the program of his life in Boston.
Sadovsky admitted he was “super nervous” for this event, with expectations lying heavily on his shoulders. Even though he won the national title, he still had to show reason why he should get this world spot over another, by skating at Four Continents.
After the short program, he felt a huge weight come off his shoulders and he settled into doing a job in the free. He skated immediately after Deniss Vasiljevs – another memorable moment of the event – who stepped off the ice to a huge ovation. Sadovsky knew he had skated well, but used the energy for his own skate.
“The crowd really welcomed me,” Sadovsky said. He shrugged off his struggles from the past two years and delivered two solid routines. He had been the right person to send after all. He’s faced plenty of pressure situations now. He’s seasoned. He knew it was vital to battle hard.
And then there’s that Vasiljevs, the artist extraordinaire who argues constantly with quads. He did not plan quads for his short program, aiming to go clean, but he fell on a triple Axel and lay 16th coming into the free. And then the sun shone upon him, somehow.
He landed a quad Salchow, mind you with an underrotation, but to the eyes in real time, it was a beaut, compared to other efforts. Originally judges awarded him 1.78 GOE for it, and then they spotted the rotation thing.
The rest was a dream. Vasiljevs landed everything in the book. He landed two triple Axels, the second one (not in combination) underrotated. A triple Lutz-triple toe loop. A triple Axel – double Axel sequence, level four spins, of course, a triple Lutz – euler – triple Salchow combo. A choreo sequence worth 2.07. Vasiljevs finished 9th in the free skate with a score of 172.27 for this, and 11th overall with 252.26.
And then there was Jason Brown, who missed most of the season with boot problems. He missed the US championships and was bravely named to the team after officials saw him work. Right decision.
Brown attempted no quads at all – and aren’t we used to this – but, although he finished 12th in the short program, his free skate was one for the ages. To “Spiegel im Spiegel” he delivered all of his Brownisms, the spirals to die for, the elegance, the body shapes, even two triple Axels. His top score for the free for the season had been only 152.01. But in Boston, he scored 180.68 for a total of 265.40, good for FOURTH. He was eighth overall.
Once again, Brown helped the US team sew up three spots for men at the Olympics next year. He had done this twice before.
Standing ovation, of course, for this ageless 30-year-old, a skating master. Brown had the highest presentation score of the night: 92.31, ahead of Malinin and all of the artistic notables.
Not tired yet? Kevin Aymoz of France. With Aymoz, you just never know. His emotions spill as his jumps spill. But not this week. Aymoz sparkled in the short program, finishing fourth in THAT field. He held it together in the free, landing a quad toe – double toe loop (hanging on for dear life), another beautiful quad, and an impossible Ina Bauer into a triple Axel, good for 2.74 bonus points, all to finish fifth overall, (seventh in the free), a spot behind countryman Siao Him Fa.
As for Malinin, he easily rises above, solid despite the noise about him, loving to show off. He loves the danger of his exploits, loves his time in the air, as his body knows when to unfurl like nobody on the planet. He’s a genius in the air.
He was made for this.
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