3-time world champion Ilia Malinin leads Skate America after a 96.74-point short program

Ilia Malinin began his four-year road to Olympic redemption with a solid short program at Skate America on Friday night at Angel of the Wings Arena in Everett, Washington.

The three-time world champion, who was heavily favored to win gold at the Milan Games in February only to miss out on an individual medal altogether, scored 96.74 points in his Grand Prix season debut. That was enough for Malinin to easily beat out Sota Yamamoto of Japan, who was second with 91.29, and surprising Donovan Carrillo of Mexico, who was third with 86.49.

In the pairs short program, world champions Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany led with a score of 72.71 points.

The American duo of Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov were second with 71.85 while the Swiss team of Oxana Vouillamoz and Tom Bouvart were third with 70.63. The Winnipeg duo of Ava Kemp and Yohnatan Elizarov were fourth at 67.73.

Efimova and Mitrofanov, who married two years ago, are the two-time reigning U.S. champions. But they were unable to compete at the Olympics because the Finland-born Efimova was unable to gain her citizenship in time to compete in Milan.

They already are targeting the 2030 Winter Games in France.

“That was last season. We’re very happy to start this season,” Mitrofanov said, “and be out there on the ice.”

So is the 21-year-old Malinin, going for his fourth Skate America title, who designed his short program as a tribute to those from the close-knit skating community who were killed in January 2025, when their American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter and fell into the icy Potomac River. Many were young skaters from the same club where Malinin trains in Virginia.

“Honestly I think coming into the first competition, my goal was to just feel out the program, how I felt on the ice,” said Malinin, who was instrumental in the U.S. defending its team gold medal at the Olympics. “I feel as the season goes on, the short program is going to be really easy to skate, because I feel so much energy from the crowd.”

Aleksa Rakic of Burnaby, B.C., was 10th.

Malinin wasn’t perfect in his short program, set to “Cantata Memoria: For the Children” by British composer Sir Karl Jenkins. After his opening quad flip and an effortless triple axel, the self-styled “Quad God” put his hand down on a quad lutz-double toe loop.

But the performance value of the program seemed to make up for the mistake, and the entirety of choreographer Shae-Lynn Bourne’s work helped to earn Malinin a big ovation from the crowd about 30 minutes north of Seattle.

“The way I see it this year, there’s not much on the line. I just wanted to go full-out, try my best, see how much I could push my level of skating,” said Malinin, who has called this year’s short program one of the hardest he has ever attempted.

The fourth of six Grand Prix events, Skate America continues Saturday with the women’s short program and the rhythm dance in the afternoon, while the men’s and pairs free skates in the evening will determine the first medals of the weekend.

Olympic champion Alysa Liu withdrew from Skate America while taking a break from the sport, and U.S. champion Amber Glenn did likewise as she competes on “Dancing with the Stars.” That leaves a young trio of American women — Sophie Joline von Felten, Logan Higase-Chen and Alexa Gasparotto — to carry the hopes of the home nation.

They’ll face a field that includes Grand Prix de France winner Ami Nakai of Japan and Russian skaters Alexandra Ignatova and Adeliia Petrosian, who are allowed to compete internationally as neutral athletes for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Jason Brown, the 31-year-old American now a decade removed from his national championship, seemed to make time stand still with his return to Skate America on Friday night. He spun out on his opening triple axel but put together a solid short program, wiping away any lingering memories from a disastrous free skate at the U.S. championships earlier this year.

Brown scored 84.00 points, putting him in sixth place heading into Saturday night’s free skate.

“It was such a long time coming and I was just so proud to be out there,” Brown said. “This was a huge step for me.”

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Dave Skretta, The Associated Press