Overview
- Malinin, who led after Thursday’s personal-best short program, sealed the title Saturday with a 218.11 free skate and 329.40 total that included five quadruple jumps.
- He scaled back from his Olympic layout by swapping the quadruple Axel for a triple and reducing total quads, prioritizing a clean performance after his eighth-place finish in Milan.
- Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama surged from sixth for silver with 306.67, Shun Sato took bronze with 288.54, and Adam Siao Him Fa fell to fifth after errors, while Olympic champion Mikhail Shaidorov did not compete.
- He said the event felt easier than the Olympics and confirmed he will join the Stars on Ice tour, which offers low-pressure exhibition shows rather than judged competition.
- The victory makes him the first man since Nathan Chen to win three straight world crowns, and he used the spotlight to urge the ISU to reconsider new rules that cut free-skate jump passes from seven to six.