Ilia Malinin rebounded from the Olympics by returning to dominating figure skating, winning his third consecutive world title by a comfortable margin.
Malinin, the “quad god” from Virginia, topped Thursday’s short program and Saturday’s free skate, totaling 329.40 points to prevail by 22.73. He screamed skyward and emphatically fist pumped at the end of his program Saturday in Czechia, Prague.
Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama (personal best free skate) and Shun Sato earned silver and bronze with three quadruple jumps each Saturday, repeating their Olympic finishes.
Malinin landed five quads in the free skate — most in the 24-skater field — while taking out some jump difficulty. He eschewed his trademark quad Axel that he singled at the Olympics, where his 15th-place free skate dropped him from first to eighth.
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“My expectation was to leave the long program in one piece, and I definitely think that happened,” Malinin said in an arena interview minutes after the victory.
His worlds score would have won gold at the Olympics by 37.82 points.
Malinin won 14 competitions in a row before the Milan Cortina Games from December 2023 through January 2026 — the longest streak in men’s skating in decades.
Malinin said he thought about the Olympics “24/7″ after coming home to Virginia — mainly “the good points” — but said after Thursday’s short that what happened is in the past.
“I was definitely coming back to prove myself that (the Olympics) was (a) one-time thing, but now I realize this is much more than just skating,” Malinin said, according to the International Skating Union. “It’s being able to go and enjoy and have fun. Coming here I had no big expectations.”
Malinin, 21, is the youngest man to win a third world title since Russian Alexei Yagudin in 2000 and the second-youngest American to achieve the feat after Dick Button, who won the third of his five in a row at age 20 in 1950.
Every American men’s singles skater who won three or more world titles also won individual Olympic gold in his career: Button (1948, ’52), Hayes Alan Jenkins (1956), David Jenkins (1960), Scott Hamilton (1984) and Nathan Chen (2022).
Olympic gold medalist Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan skipped worlds, which is common for the post-Olympic worlds for stars who have many off-ice opportunities.
Americans Andrew Torgashev and Jacob Sanchez placed 10th and 12th, respectively. The U.S. kept the maximum three men’s spots for the 2027 Worlds because the top two Americans’ results added up to no more than 13.
Torgashev improved on his 12th-place finish in his Olympic debut and previous worlds finishes of 21st (2023) and 22nd (2025).
“I had put so much pressure on myself last year in Boston (at worlds),” he said. “I wanted to get those three spots, so we had three spots for the Olympics. It felt like such a big moment that just crushed me. … I want to be fighting for these medals. I don’t want to be just fighting for a top 10.”
Sanchez, 18, made his senior worlds debut on five days’ notice. He was snowboarding when he found out last Saturday that he was replacing two-time Olympian Jason Brown, his childhood skating inspiration who withdrew.
His worlds free skate was his first full run-through of the program since the junior worlds March 6.
He plans to work on quad jumps — toe loop, flip, Salchow and Lutz — in the offseason.
“If I can get those, I think I could be really, really competitive in the next quad, and really be able to push my limit to try to make the 2030 Olympic team,” he said.
Worlds conclude later Saturday with the free dance, live on Peacock and USA Network.
Kaori Sakamoto became the first women’s singles skater since Michelle Kwan to win a fourth world title, doing so in the last event of her career.
