Ilia Malinin won a second straight world title, but he wanted more

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Ilia Malinin won a second straight world title, but he wanted more

BOSTON — Ilia Malinin won a second straight world title Saturday night, this one by a larger margin than the first.

But, despite his utter dominance of men’s singles skating, Malinin felt upset that he had left something undone.

That’s why he whacked the ice in frustration after finishing a free skate that left him happy because it brought another gold medal but disappointed because he fell short of his goal.

This season, Malinin wanted to further enhance his reputation as the Quadg0d by doing an unprecedented free skate in which all seven jumping passes began with a successful quad, and they were to include all six different types of the jump.

The skating gods apparently still think that is hubris.

He now has tried it unsuccessfully three times.

“It’s a pretty decent challenge that I’ve given myself,” he said.

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A special feeling in watching Alysa Liu triumph, both live and in the mind's eye

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A special feeling in watching Alysa Liu triumph, both live and in the mind's eye

As a journalist, you are trained to cover a story with neutrality and dispassion.

As a human being, you have emotions, and mine were provoked by watching a bogglingly brilliant performance by a person whom I have covered for many years, whose struggles and triumphs I have related.

In my 45 years of reporting on figure skating, I cannot recall being more emotionally moved by what I was experiencing than I was by watching Alysa Liu win the World Championships.

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At figure skating worlds, a U.S.-Canada ice dance story adds a chapter

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At figure skating worlds, a U.S.-Canada ice dance story adds a chapter

The two couples have both been in the same ice dance universe for 14 seasons, with each moving at a different trajectory and speed toward the shiny medals that once seemed distant.

One team, Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States, got there faster and collected more medals of all colors and more of the most glittering.

Yet as they and rivals Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada home in on the biggest and brightest medal of all, an Olympic gold, the gap between the two couples has narrowed to the point that who stands on the top step of the podium at the 2026 Winter Games is almost impossible to predict.

Even the results of the 2025 World Championships that began Wednesday in Boston likely will not be enough to make one couple the decisive favorite next year in Milan, Italy.

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Jason Brown tries to reboot his Boston story at World Figure Skating Championships

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Jason Brown tries to reboot his Boston story at World Figure Skating Championships

Jason Brown and his coach, Tracy Wilson, came up with a four-year plan for his competitive skating future a few months after the 2022 Winter Olympics, where Brown had a strong sixth-place finish with personal best scores for the short program and total.

They designed a rather unconventional approach to keep Brown mentally fresh and physically healthy for a run at the 2026 Olympics, where he could become, at age 31, the sixth-oldest Olympic men’s singles competitor in the last 90 years.

The idea was that Brown would do a minimal number of competitions in the 2023 and 2024 seasons and spend relatively little time training in Toronto, staying fit by doing lots of show skating. Then he would do a full competitive schedule this season (fall of 2024 through spring 2025), testing how that worked before following a similar schedule in the upcoming Olympic season.

On the surface, it all went well the first two seasons, with Brown finishing second at both the 2023 and 2024 U.S. Championships and fifth at both the 2023 and 2024 World Championships.

But as Brown looked forward to the 2025 World Championships, at the Boston arena where he had not skated since a career-defining moment at nationals in 2014, the metaphorical wheels – his skates - came off after having wobbled the previous two seasons.

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For figure skating family, plane crash has unimaginable link to past tragedy

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For figure skating family, plane crash has unimaginable link to past tragedy

I did not know any of the members of the U.S. figure skating family who died in Wednesday’s tragic accident involving an American Airlines plane and a military helicopter.

Yet I am among those who deeply mourn for them.

Figure skating in the United States is an extended family that includes journalists, despite our best (and necessary) efforts to keep the appropriate relative distance from people we write about so that we can tell the stories that need to be told.

In none of the other sports I covered on a regular basis have I found athletes, coaches and officials as accessible, open-hearted and helpful as in figure skating.

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