Ilia Malinin became the third American man to win a world junior figure skating title in the last six years, routing the field in Tallinn, Estonia, this week.
Malinin, who was second at the senior U.S. Championships in January and left off the three-man Olympic team, totaled 276.11 points with four quad-ruple jumps in Saturday’s free skate.
The 17-year-old prevailed by 41.8 points over Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov, the largest junior men’s margin of victory since the points-based judging system was introduced in 2005. He shattered the record margin of 17.12 points set by Adam Rippon in 2009.
Malinin also shattered the record for men’s or women’s singles margin of victory set by Yuna Kim in 2006 (24.19 points).
After Rippon, Americans again claimed the world junior title in 2013 (Josh Farris), 2017 (Vin-cent Zhou) and 2019 (Tomoki Hiwatashi).—AP
