The performance of American teenager Ilia Malinin at the World Figure Skating Championships held this weekend in Montreal (Canada), where he performed a record of six quadruple jumps and a quadruple axel, continues to be praised this Monday and confirms his nickname of “god of the quadruples”.
Malinin, 19, not only managed to break the record for quadruple jumps, performed the axel (the only skater in history to have achieved this in world championships) and won his first gold medal, but also accumulated the highest score never awarded in the competition: 227.79 points.
In comparison, fellow American Nathan Chen won figure skating gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2022 with five quadruple jumps, a performance that placed him at the top with 218.63 points.
On his Instagram account, Malinin posted a video this Monday in which he acknowledged that the feeling after winning the gold was “incredible.”
“I don’t have words to describe it… Be attentive to next season. We have many surprises,” added the skater.
Malinin already made it clear where he was going when at the end of 2022, at the age of 17, he made history by performing a quadruple axel (four and a half turns in the air) in two different championships, the first time a skater had performed a pirouette in an official competition.
On the second occasion, at Skate America held in October 2022, Malinin won gold. Following his impressive gold in Montreal, the media has reaffirmed Malinin’s nickname as “the god of quadruples.”
For his part, Malinin acknowledged that the victory meant a lot after winning gold in Montreal. “The last few weeks have been a mental and physical challenge. I even considered whether I could come or not. It was a last minute decision, but I wanted to come to see what I could put on the ice and now I am very happy to be up here” said the skater.
In the end, Malinin beat the Japanese Kagiyama Yuma, who came in second place, by 24 points.