{"id":16606,"date":"2026-03-27T09:08:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T09:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/?p=16606"},"modified":"2026-03-27T09:08:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T09:08:35","slug":"quad-god-ilia-malinin-dominates-the-short-program-at-the-world-championships-delivers-a-personal-best-score","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/?p=16606","title":{"rendered":"Quad God\u2019 Ilia Malinin dominates the short program at the World Championships, delivers a personal-best score"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. figure skater Ilia Malinin soared to first place in the Men\u2019s Short Program on Thursday at the 2026 ISU Figure Skating World Championships, edging out former European champion Adam Siao Him Fa and Estonia\u2019s Aleksandr Selevko in second and third, respectively.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/HEWOdZbaYAA6-2N.jpg\" alt=\"Ilia Malinin has achieved a new technical personal best in the short program with the score of 65.05 at the 2026 World Championships, surprassing his previous personal best of 64.27 he achieved\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-4\"><\/div>\n<p>Delivering a personal-best score to take a staggering lead, Malinin returned to dominance after an uncharacteristic effort in Milan-Cortina. \u201c(Ilia Malinin) is back\u2026 but he never really went anywhere,\u201d commentator Tanith White reflected.<\/p>\n<p>In a \u201cshowcase of a human journey,\u201d Malinin triumphed over his mental woes from Milan-Cortina in Prague, nearly 33 years after his mother, Tatyana Malinina, made her World Championships debut in the same central European city.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/HEWNw-oakAAwjNW.jpg\" alt=\"Ilia Malinin has achieved a new personal best in the short program with the score of 111.29, surprassing his previous personal best of 110.41 he achieved at the 2025 World Championships. \ud83d\udcf8 Kyodo News\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-5\"><\/div>\n<p>Winning the short program by a whopping 10 points, Malinin enters Saturday\u2019s free skate in prime position to win his third-straight world title. If Malinin can execute the win, he\u2019ll become the first American since Nathan Chen to win three-straight world championshipt titles.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/ais\/9ad2d22f-64b4-4d56-a134-966e357deb79,1774539664253\/full\/max\/0\/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D%280%2C361%2C6920%2C3892%29%3B\" alt=\"American Quad God Ilia Malinin ascends into top spot at world championships\" \/><\/p>\n<p>All three American skaters excelled in Thursday\u2019s short program, with 2026 Olympian Andrew Torgashev and rookie Jacob Sanchez also posting personal bests to qualify in the top ten.<\/p>\n<p>Men\u2019s competition concludes with the free skate, slated for Saturday, March 28. Fans can stream the action live on Peacock, beginning at 7:30 a.m. ET.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Watch the video below.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ilia MALININ (USA) | Men Short Program | ISU World Championships Prague 2026 | #FigureSkating\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vPqKkqRgLZU?feature=oembed\" width=\"790\" height=\"444\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-origwidth=\"790\" data-origheight=\"444\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Men\u2019s Short Program Results (Top 10):<\/h2>\n<p>Ilia Malinin (United States): 111.29<\/p>\n<p>Adam Siao Him Fa (France): 101.85<\/p>\n<p>Aleksandr Selevko (Estonia): 96.49<\/p>\n<p>Shun Sato (Japan): 95.84<\/p>\n<p>Stephen Gogolev (Canada): 94.38<\/p>\n<p>Yuma Kagiyama (Japan): 93.80<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Torgashev (United States): 89.07<\/p>\n<p>Daniel Grassl (Italy): 88.53<\/p>\n<p>Lukas Britschgi (Switzerland): 88.30<\/p>\n<p>Jacob Sanchez (United States): 85.15<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/10f4K9tw48sc9Rd5hnaStQ--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTQyNztjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/forbes_contributor_845\/ce035329f664b5eef2bdf6348ea7f3be\" alt=\"Ilia Malinin Dominates Short Program In Triumphant World Championship Return - Yahoo Sports\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. figure skater Ilia Malinin soared to first place in the Men\u2019s Short Program on Thursday at the 2026 ISU Figure Skating World Championships, edging out former&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16607,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16608,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16606\/revisions\/16608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}