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Ilia Malinin lands six quadruple jumps, wins third U.S. figure skating title by historic margin

World champion Ilia Malinin landed a record-tying six quadruple jumps to win his third consecutive U.S. figure skating title.

Malinin, a 20-year-old from the D.C. area, landed a quad flip, quad Axel (a jump no other skater has ever landed), two quad Lutzes, quad toe loop and quad Salchow in Sunday’s free skate in Wichita, Kansas.

He was attempting to become the first skater to land seven quads in one skate, but fell on his fourth quad attempt, a loop. His top international rivals try three or four quads in free skates.

Malinin totaled 333.31 points, prevailing by 46.82 over runner-up Andrew Torgashev. They’re joined on the three-man team for March’s World Championships in Boston by two-time Olympian Jason Brown, who missed nationals due to “a series of challenges adjusting to an equipment change.” Brown’s spot is “pending return to play protocol.”

FIGURE SKATING: Results | Broadcast Schedule

“It wasn’t the perfect program that I exactly wanted,” Malinin said on NBC Sports. “But I think it really gives me a good, solid start of what is working in this program and some things I might need to take time to really develop or take away from the program.

“One of the things I would say is maybe that I’m still not at my full potential yet, and that there’s a lot bigger of a limit that I can go for. So I think that’s something to look forward to worlds.”

It’s the third-largest margin of victory in U.S. Championships history across all disciplines under a 20-year-old scoring system. Nathan Chen won two of his six titles by 58.21 and 55.44.

Malinin has now won eight competitions in a row, a streak that began in December 2023.

He is the overwhelming early favorite to make it back-to-back Olympic men’s singles titles for the U.S. in 2026 after Chen, who stepped away from competition after winning the 2022 Beijing Games.

Malinin first broke through at the 2022 U.S. Championships at age 17, placing second to Chen. He was left off that three-man Olympic team for the more experienced Brown and Vincent Zhou.

Eight months later, Malinin opened his 2022-23 season by becoming the first skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition. The “quad god” era began.

Fast forward to Malinin’s last competition at December’s Grand Prix Final. He became the first skater to attempt seven quads in one program, falling on one as he did at nationals.

He attempted and landed all six types of quads at the Final — also unprecedented — though two were judged under-rotated and all of his jumping passes were graded negatively for at least minor errors. He was much cleaner Sunday with five positively graded jumping passes and two negative.

Malinin took the scoresheet of that Final program — which he deemed the “perfect layout” of jumps — and slapped it on the back of a sweatshirt.

“That was just a personalized piece for me,” Malinin, who has his own merchandise stand at competitions, said of the hoodie before nationals. “Just as a memory of first time going for all these seven quad jumps in one program. Of course, it wasn’t what I wanted as a program in general, but I think that was definitely the first start of this.”

The figure skating season continues this week with the European Championships starting Wednesday, live on Peacock.

Ilia Malinin plans to do a backflip at Skate America after figure skating officials made it legal for the first time in nearly 50 years.