Agent Malinin – about the skater’s victory at the World Championships: “He will progress and complicate the program”

American Ilya Malinin will improve and complicate the program after winning the World Championships in Canada, the figure skater’s agent Ari Zakarian told .

Malinin won the first world championship title at the singles tournament in Montreal, Canada, by performing six quadruple jumps during his free program, including a 4.5 Axel. The American also set a world record for most points scored on the second day of competition (227.79), beating Nathan Chen’s score (224.92) from 2019. At the same time, Chen continues to hold the world record for the total – 335.3 points. Malinin, 19, scored 333.76 in two rentals.

— Ilya is very happy to have won the World Championship. In all the time we’ve been working, I’ve never seen him so focused. He had phenomenal concentration until the last day, he listened and trained as much as possible. Ilya knew that the whole world was watching him, he understood the burden placed on him, but he still did a quadruple axel, which is not worth that many points.

He showed the maximum technical result that can only be achieved now. In the end, after the victory, Ilya had already exploded, as if the cork had flown out of a bottle of champagne, we had a great and good evening. Of course, when you win with such a result and such a performance, it’s doubly pleasing.

— Were there any congratulations from Russia?

— Many people congratulated Ilya, he was overwhelmed by all his personal messages, including from Russians. Many people also congratulated me.

—Are you surprised that Ilya keeps progressing? It seems to be its highest level, but it goes even further…

– That doesn’t surprise me. He says he always wants to move forward. This is far from the limit, there will be more to come. It will only progress and complicate the program.

I would like to express my sincere condolences to all the victims and families of those killed as a result of the terrorist attack in Moscow. Ilya and I did not raise this issue, we tried not to bother him before the competition, but the event was tragic. “Strength to all and speedy recovery to those who are hospitalized,” Zakaryan told .

Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama won silver in the men’s tournament in Montreal (309.65), while bronze went to Frenchman Adam Xiao Him Fa (284.39).

Malinin was born in the United States to the family of figure skaters Tatyana Malinina and Roman Skornyakov, who competed internationally for Uzbekistan.