Ilia Malinin talks history-making victory after winning 1st World Figure Skating title
Ilia Malinin, 19, opens up about his history making-victory after winning his first world title.
While competing at the World Figure Skating Championship on Saturday, Malinin delivered a record-breaking performance, landing six quadruple jumps in a single program with a quad axel and finishing with a free-skate score of 227.79, the highest points ever achieved in the competition.
Speaking to "Good Morning America" in an interview aired on Monday, the athlete, dubbed as "the quad god," recalled his performance over the weekend, calling it "one of the best skates of my career."
Discussing what he felt looking back at the record-breaking performance, he said, "at the moment, it doesn't really feel real yet. It kind of feels a little bit like a dream."
"But I'm just hoping that in the next few days, I'll finally start to realize that [the moments] have actually happened," he added.
Throughout Malinin’s four and a half minute masterpiece where he skated to the soundtrack from the hit HBO TV show "Succession," the live audience showed their support by cheering him on, which he said helped boost his confidence.
When it comes to choosing the music, he said the decision was made between himself, his choreographers and his parents, who also are his coaches. Both of Malinin’s parents were Olympic skaters for Uzbekistan.
"I was really interested to try this piece of music," he explained. "It was something that I've never skated to before and it was a different style of skating, for me to try but I was looking forward to it. And I think that it really helped me boost my skating ability and to really progress and how I'm able to play around with different genres to improve my skating overall."
"I was wondering what could go wrong or what could possibly happen, but once the music started I almost like it just vanished. Those voices just vanished," he said.
The minute he landed his final jump, Malinin said the reality finally hit him.
"That was the moment when I realized that, you know, I finally did it and it felt so good for me to land all those jumps and not make a mistake," he said.
At his final pose, Malinin collapsed onto the ice as he was seen getting emotional.
Reflecting on the moment of triumph during his interview with "GMA," he shared, "It's just an amazing feeling for me to be [the] world champion. It's just incredible. I have no words to describe it."
"I'm so glad that I was able to achieve this goal and it's definitely going to be one of the most memorable memories in my whole career so far," he said.
