U.S. teen figure skater Ilia Malinin earned his first World Champion title Saturday night with a breathtaking long program consisting of six flawless quadruple jumps, which is known to be one of the most difficult jumps in figure skating.
Malinin, 19, is now a world record holder after his jaw-dropping performance at the 2024 World Figure Skating Championships held in Montreal.
He is the second American figure skater to land six quad jumps in a single program and the first with a fully rotated quad axel, which, unlike the quad jump's four revolutions has four and a half rotations.
During the free skate, the Virginia teen landed a quad Axel, quad Lutz, quad loop, quad Salchow, another quad Lutz combined with a triple flip, a quad toe loop combined with a triple toe, and finished with a triple Lutz-triple Axel combo.
Thrilled spectators could be heard roaring in triumph after Malinin completed his final jumping pass through to the end of the four-minute free skate set to music from the HBO drama series, Succession.
After he briefly held his final position, the emotionally overwhelmed Malinin crumpled to the ice on his back and clutched his face amid the deafening cheers, fully aware of his victorious performance.
You can watch his triumphant free skating routine in its entirety here.
Teenager Ilia Malinin lands a record SIX quads to capture world figure skating title | NBC Sportsyoutu.be
People were blown away by his performance.
That was freaking amazing!!! Made me proud to be an American! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
— Nancy MacLachlan (@nem56) March 25, 2024
Malinin's free skate score was 227.79, the highest free skate score in history, surpassing the record of 224.92 set by three-time World Champion U.S. figure skater Nathan Chen in 2019.
Coupled with the short program, Malinin scored an overall 333.76 points, taking himself from the third spot last year to gold.
Japan's Olympic silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama came in second with 309.65, followed by France's Adam Siao Him Fa, who took home bronze with 284.39.
Former Reigning World Champion Shoma Uno of Japan dropped to fourth after placing first in the short program.
After commentating during Malinin's free skate, two-time Olympian American figure skater Johnny Weir said of the newly-minted World Champ:
"I have never seen anything more mystifying than that."
He added:
"You think about one of the greatest moments in sports history, and this is one of them."
Malinin is the son of Uzbekistani singles skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, the latter of whom waited for Malinin off the ice to hear the scores after a proud embrace.
Malinin is still riding the high off of his record-breaking performance.
He told NBC Sports:
“It was amazing to hear the crowd go wild."
“I couldn’t even hold myself up, it was that emotional to me."
"I’m still in shock. I still can’t believe I did this. It’s just incredible.”
