US star Ilia Malinin defended his world figure skating title on Saturday with a dominant display on the ice inside Boston’s packed TD Garden.
According to CNN, the 20-year-old cruised to the title, capping off his campaign with a scintillating free skate which was greeted by a standing ovation by those inside the arena.
Malinin wowed the crowd with six quadruple jumps to the tune of “I’m Not a Vampire” by Falling In Reverse. He finished his title defense with a season-leading 318.56 points, more than 31 points ahead of Mikhail Shaidorov in second.
However, ever the perfectionist, Malinin somehow wanted more from his routine after he narrowly missed out on landing a planned seventh quadruple jump.
Malinin said after the win, “The home crowd was really inspiring for me, and I am glad that I was able to work out the whole season to get to this moment. It means a lot to me, and I really hope that in future seasons, I can really improve and work on the things that I didn’t accomplish today.”
“I’ll spend the offseason trying to master this to make sure that I can be as efficient as I can because for me, I think this is my perfect layout for the Olympics,” he added.
Malinin’s gold medal caps off a successful world championships for the US, which also saw Alysa Liu become first American woman in 19 years to win figure skating world title.
