ST. LOUIS (AP) — Ilia Malinin won his fourth consecutive U.S. Figure Skating title on Saturday night, capping the last national championships before the Milan Cortina Olympics with his usual unparalleled flair but a dialed-back version of the world champion's high-flying jumps.
Malinin scaled back a free skate that could include as many as seven quads, going for just three — still more than anyone else in the competition. He finished with 324.88 points, extending an unbeaten streak that stretches back more than two years.
“I decided not to go for any risks. I wanted to play it safe, because hopefully in a few weeks I have to go again,” Malinin said.
Andrew Torgashev finished second with a season-best free skate that produced a total of 267.62 points, while Maxim Naumov earned the bronze medal with 249.16 points, and may have fulfilled the wishes of his late parents by making the Olympic team.
They were among those killed when a plane collided with a military helicopter over the Potomac River in January 2025.
U.S. Figure Skating will announce the team headed to Italy on Sunday.
“I gritted my teeth on everything. I fought on everything. If I had to crawl, I would crawl to the end," Naumov said, "but I made it.”
Earlier in the night, Madison Chock and Evan Bates won a record-setting seventh U.S. title with a flamenco-style free dance set to a version of the Rolling Stones hit “Paint It Black” from the dystopian sci-fi Western show “Westworld.”
Chock and Bates, the three-time reigning world champions, wound up with 228.87 points. Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik were second with 213.65 and Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko were third with 206.95.
“The feeling that we got from the audience today was unlike anything I've ever felt before,” said Chock, who along with Bates helped the Americans win team gold at the Beijing Olympics four years ago, but finished a disappointing fourth in the ice dance.
They'll be the heavy favorites to win gold next month in Italy.
“I felt so much love and joy,” Chock continued, "and I'm so grateful for this moment.”
Nobody will be a bigger favorite than Malinin, though.
The 21-year-old from Fairfax, Virginia, was somewhat controversially skipped over for the American team four years ago, when the officials making the call decided he was too young and inexperienced. But rather than sulk about it, Malinin turned the time since into an unstoppable march through just about every competition he has entered.
Along with winning everything the last two years, he has one second-place finish in the last three. That includes victories this season in the Grand Prix de France, Skate America and the Grand Prix Final, the most prestigious event outside the Olympics and worlds.
Skating to a musical medley featuring his own voice-over, Malinin opened with a quad flip, then landed a triple axel, before hitting a triple lutz rather than a quad lutz. Malinin added a quad lutz and a quad salchow-triple axel combination later in the program, earning him yet another standing ovation — and another gold medal in a closet already full of them.
The real question remains who will join Malinin on the Olympic team. The U.S. also has qualified the maximum of three men's spots for the upcoming Winter Games, and Torgashev and Naumov staked their claim on Saturday night.
Skating to “In This Shirt” by The Irrepressibles, Naumov landed an opening quad salchow but tripled his other planned quad. He was otherwise solid on his jumps, other than spinning out on his last combination jump, and earned his own standing ovation.
It was an emotional week for Naumov, who brought to the kiss-and-cry area an old photo of him with his parents, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova. One of the last conversations he had with them was about what it would take to make the Olympic team.
Along with Malinin and Torgashev, the 24-year-old Naumov just might have done it.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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