Malinin soars to 3rd worlds title, Beaudry/Cizeron cap golden season in Prague

Ilia Malinin of the United States reasserted his dominance with a commanding victory to secure his third consecutive world championship title, as the 2026 ISU World Figure Skating Championships concluded in Prague on Saturday, reported Xinhua.

On the final day of competition at the O2 Arena, the 'Quad God' delivered a free skate for the ages. Skating last among the men, Malinin opened with a massive quad flip and followed with a triple Axel, quad Lutz, and three additional clean quadruple jumps, earning a free skate score of 218.11 points for a total of 329.40 - finishing nearly 23 points clear of the field.

"It was very awesome. I enjoyed every single part of it and I'm so glad to be here," Malinin said. "It feels really different, because going into this competition I had no expectations. I wanted to just come out here, enjoy the atmosphere and enjoy the environment of the figure skating world."

Japan's Yuma Kagiyama climbed from sixth place after the short program to claim silver with a personal-best free skate of 212.87 points and a total of 306.67, earning his fourth silver medal at the worlds. His teammate Shun Sato took bronze with 288.54 points, his first world medal.

In the ice dance competition, Olympic champions Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron of France capped a perfect season by claiming their first world title as a team. The French duo delivered a mesmerizing free dance to "The Whale," scoring a personal-best 138.07 points for a total of 230.81, winning by a margin of over 19 points.

"We are super happy about what we felt out there with the whole ambience and all the love from everyone, we really lived on ice," Fournier Beaudry said.

Canada's Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier earned silver with 211.52 points, their fifth career world medal, while Americans Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik took a surprise bronze on their world championship debut with 209.20 points.

Chinese pair Ren Junfei and Xing Jianing, who finished 24th in the rhythm dance on Friday with 63.75 points, did not advance to the free dance. They were the only Chinese entry in the ice dance discipline.

The championships, which drew over 111,000 spectators across five days, also saw Chinese duo Zhang Jiaxuan and Huang Yihang finish ninth in the pairs competition earlier in the week with a total of 184.90 points. In the women's event, Zhang Ruiyang placed 16th - China's best result in the discipline at the worlds since 2017.

Sunday will feature the exhibition gala and the ISU Figure Skating Awards ceremony.