US prodigy Ilia Malinin drills six quads to win first world figure skating title

• Virginia teenager caps stunning ascent with first world title
• Malinin beats Olympic silver medalist Kagiyama by 24 points
• Japan's Kagiyama takes silver as Siao Him Fa earns bronze

Ilia Malinin, the Virginia teenager whose once-unimaginable array of quadruple jumps has enthralled the figure skating world over the past two years, completed his meteoric rise to the top of the sport on Saturday night by winning his first world championship.

The 19-year-old American prodigy, performing his free skate to a crowd-pleasing medley of music from the TV show Succession, became the second skater ever to land six quadruple jumps in a single program and the first to do it with a quad axel, the four-and-a-half-revolution jump that had never been landed in competition until Malinin pulled it off at the 2022 US Classic, when he was 17.