Ilia Malinin prepares to win the World Figure Skating Championship on Saturday

Two months ago, after easily winning his third consecutive figure skating national championship, Ilia Malinin appeared on the rink for training at the World Championships, but couldn’t even let himself skate for a second.

Marining, a favorite of overwhelming gold medals at next year’s Italian Olympic Games, tied his skates and looked around and felt emptiness stop him.

That week, 28 people involved in the skating died when an Army helicopter collided with a passenger plane on the Potomac River, killing all 67 passengers. These include young skaters, including three at the Washington Figure Skating Club, Marining Club, and other rinks that sometimes train in Reston, Virginia.

He said a coach, a skater and his father, and a family – two young sisters and their parents – died from that club, and Marining, 20, felt so sad a few weeks later that he couldn’t even name them.

“Skating usually helps me deal with the tough things that happen in my life, but it’s too emotional,” Malining said in an interview with The New York Times in the first week of March. “I tried to have a productive day of skating. But I just couldn’t feel at ease. I just couldn’t do it.”

He said he doubled down on being the best men’s singles skater in the world when he returned to the rink a few days later, and was set for stars at the Olympics nearly 10 months from now.

He said he focused on fine-tuning his plans and immersed in them, determined to dedicate him to the dead at the World Figure Skating Championships this week. He said his performance should be worthy of their memory.

The result is probably the best performance Malinin has ever seen, a dynamic skater who single-handedly brings the sport to his technical skills and ability to connect with new young audiences.

Teenager Malinin – the guy with a hoodie and jeans – started calling himself “Quad God” because he had the ability to perform a quad jump, which was the hardest skating. But now his unique performance is equally memorable: With his flowing movements and unique body shapes, his routine can double as modern dance. The music he often chose for them was contrary to the long-standing classical works that the sport is well known for. He said he performed music he liked to listen to.

On Thursday, on his brief show at the World Championships in Boston, the music was the song “Running” by rapper NF. He sang as if he was alone in the car, and the crowd could skillfully feel his emotions when they were synchronized with every note of the song.

As he shuns of gravity, his thick blonde hair turned into a blond blur and performed in an air show after the jump, which included two quads. The design of his long-sleeved outfit, indigo, forms a thick gray diagonal stripe, making it look as if the fabric on the top has been torn apart to reveal another color. From a distance, it seems to be torn apart – the clothes of those who survived the battle.

With the traditional jump, Malinin included a move that he called the Raspberry Twist, a twisted version of the butterfly jump, during which he was almost parallel to the ice. He named his last name: in Russian, “Marina” means raspberry. As he landed it in the middle of the step sequence, the crowd burst out after all his jumps were finished, and the roar continued, surprised him long before his show ended.

“Once the music started playing, I got into my starting position and I almost fell into the flow, which really took me away from there.” Malining recorded 110.41 points, one of the highest short shows ever in international competitions and beat Japan’s Yuma Yuma Kagiyama.

Now, Malinin from Vienna, Virginia is an overwhelming favorite to win Saturday’s free skating and his second straight world championship. Olympic silver medalist Kagiyama said at the 2022 Beijing Games that he was in awe of Malinin’s transformation, a skater known for the power, speed and timing needed to land an impeccable quad, with artistry almost untouchable.

Kajishan said: “I began to think he was invincible.”

Adam Rippon, bronze medalist at the 2018 Olympics, said it was a pity that Marining’s athleticism, especially his four-wheel workout, tended to cover up his natural talent as a performer.

“It’s hard to be unafraid and expose your emotions like this, but I think he did it well, and he did it without any concealment, almost at the point where he was reckless,” Ripen said. “I think the Quad is great, but what I really like about his skating is that he pushed himself to the absolute ending of his great, great show.”

Audiences can expect more glory on Saturday’s Marining freeboard. He said if he felt good about the warm-up, he might try to execute seven quads-records if he landed. Even the back panel. His song will be “I’m Not a Vampire (Revamp)” and the rock band falls.

On paper, he has won. Just like Simone Biles in gymnastics, his technical elements have a high base score that it is hard for anyone to surpass him.

Malinin shows that when the Nationals won nearly 47 points in January, huge wins in the sport are usually measured by unit numbers or even one-tenth of victory. He landed on six quads, each requiring an incredible four-and-a-half revolution. No other skaters landed as many in one plan.

For years, the world’s top skaters had to dream of the speed at which they landed on four-wheel axles, which was made even harder due to their forward-looking entry. Malinin is now a George Mason University student who landed him at an international event at the age of 17.

“At his age, especially in his skill level and everything else he brings, I can’t beat him, but I don’t think there is a way to understand what his ceiling is,” said Scott Hamilton, 1984 Olympic gold medalist and skating analyst.

“What else can Ilia do?” Hamilton added. “Anything he wants. It’s impossible for a skater to not have this innate talent.”

Malining said his approach before the world was easy. jump. Rotate. The movement of music. He said everything was right.

However, on the rink, sometimes he thought of dead skaters, which he admitted, forced him to stop. He said his parents, Tatyana Malinina and Roman Skornyakov, skating for Uzbekistan in past Olympics – coaching him and helping him reorganize.

Marining said the skaters he knew were no longer there, and they weren’t looking at him, learning from him, or training him next to him, “really upset me.” Memorializing them through his performances helped him move forward.

He said: “I’m also happy to be able to solve this problem.