A 19-year-old American figure skater has received the highest score ever in free skating history.
Virginia native Ilia Malinin scored a record-breaking 227.79 in the free skate at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships on March 23, which earned him his second world medal and first gold medal. In a four-minute performance, Malinin landed a quadruple axel, quad lutz, quad loop, quad salchow, a second quad lutz, a quad toe loop and a triple lutz-triple axel.
The performance was set to music from the show “Succession,” with Malinin receiving GOES (grade of execution scores) between 2.74 and 4.44 for the first four jumps, followed by 23.30 points for his quad Lutz-Euler-triple flip combination.
MORE: 18 unforgettable figure skating costumes from competitions past
Dropping to the ice after the performance, Malinin says the win means “so much” and that the past few weeks had been a mental and physical challenge.
“I was even debating whether or not to come to the World Championships, but at the last minute I was like, ‘I want to do this. I want to come here. I want to see what I can put out on the ice,’ and I’m glad that I stuck with that,” he said, according to a U.S. Figure Skating press release. “Going through the short and the free, I just trusted myself in my training and everything that I went through, and I’m so glad to be here on top right now.”
You can watch Malinin’s full performance below:
MORE: Figure skater nails viral ‘Wednesday’ dance on ice at the Russian Figure Skating Championships
Figure skaters Madison Chock and Evan Bates also took home the gold, becoming the first U.S. ice dance team to win back-to-back world titles. They have now also made the record books as the U.S. ice dance team with the most world medals.
The wins from Malinin, Chock and Bates mark the first time in nearly 20 years that the United States earned two gold medals at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships. Michelle Kwan and Todd Eldredge took home the wins in 1996.
Watch U.S. figure skater land six quad jumps and set new high-score record originally appeared on Simplemost.com
