PRAGUE — Six weeks and one day after his awful meltdown at the Milan Olympics, Ilia Malinin threw his head back and roared in delight. The judges’ scores would come in a few minutes, but he already knew. He knew he had done it. Five quadruple jumps, no falls, no stumbles, combined with the big lead he already had coming into the long program? There could be no doubt. He would be world champion for the third consecutive time.
The same long program that had become such a devastating disappointment in February for the 21-year-old “Quad God” was bringing him nothing but joy in March. He won the world championship in a skating landslide: his total of 329.40 points was nearly 23 points ahead of Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama (306.67), with Shun Sato of Japan a distant third (288.54).
Malinin's first thought? “I felt really relieved.”
In the final event of the grueling 2026 Olympic season, Ilia became Ilia again. But in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY Sports after the competition, he said no matter how thrilled he was with his world championship performance, it does not make up for what happened in Milan.
"They are two different things,” he said. “It’s good that I was able to end the season on a good note and I’m proud of that, but also they’re two completely different competitions in the end, so I think the real redemption will be in 2030 (the next Winter Olympics).”
