He’s been called the Quad God, skating’s great innovator, the next Olympic champion. On Saturday night, in front of a roaring crowd at TD Garden, Ilia Malinin made it official: he is once again the best figure skater in the world.
The 20-year-old American conjured another sensational free skate to close out the world figure skating championships, landing a record-tying six quadruple jumps in strolling to his second straight world title. His season-best total score of 318.56 landed him a yawning 31.09 points clear of Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov, who captured silver with a personal-best routine, and Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, who dropped from second place to the bronze after an error-strewn long program.
