BOSTON — Reigning world champion Ilia Malinin delivered a season-best short program on Thursday, giving the young American star a slim lead over Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama in what has quickly become a two-man race to this year’s title.
The 20-year-old Malinin delivered a pair of quads and a brilliant triple axel to score 110.41 points, just over three points off the world record set by Nathan Chen at the 2022 Winter Olympics. It was enough to keep Malinin in first when Kagiyama followed him with a resplendent program that resulted in a score of 107.09 — about a point off his career-best.
Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan was a distant third with 94.77 points heading into Saturday night’s free skate, which will wrap up the final world championships before the Milano-Cortina Olympics next year.
The high-flying Malinin, who has not been beaten since 2023, has become the clear-cut favorite to succeed Chen at the Winter Games. And he certainly doesn’t seem to mind the pressure, performing with a sort of swagger that belies his age.
As Malinin wrapped his short program, set to “Running” by American rapper NF, the TD Garden crowd stood in ovation.
The world championships continued Thursday night, when the first medals were to be awarded following the pairs free skate. Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan had a nearly two-point lead over Sara Conti and Niccolo Macci of Italy after their short program as they try to win back the world title they held two years ago.
Defending champs Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps of Canada have work to do. They earned negative grades of execution for their twist, throw triple loop and spin in their short program, leaving them in seventh with 67.32 points.
One of the subplots to the world championships is how many spots each country can secure for the Olympics. The formula is relatively complicated, but for countries such as the U.S. with three competitors at worlds, the top two placements must total 13 or less for that nation to receive the maximum of three spots at the Winter Games.
Malinin is certain to give the Americans one good score. The other will depend on the performances in Saturday night’s free skate for Andrew Torgashev and Jason Brown, the 30-year-old, two-time Olympian who continues to defy his age.
Torgashev spent a while atop the leaderboard Thursday night after a short program that scored 87.27 points and left him in eighth place. Brown wound up 12th with 84.72, a total that would have been better had the perennial fan favorite not overshot his triple axel or double a planned triple toe loop in his combination with a triple lutz.
Nevertheless, Brown was all smiles after a solid skate amid a trying season. He’s been dealing with boot issues that forced him to withdraw from the U.S. championships in January, and only recently did he finally get his equipment sorted out.
“You know what? It felt great,” Brown said. “I’m proud of the fight that I gave this season. You know, every single time I got knocked down, my coaches and sports psych and my family would like, rally behind me, like, ‘No, we’re going to keep pushing. We’re going to figure it out.’ And so out of that, oh my gosh, it’s so special.”
