GRENOBLE, France — World champion Ilia Malinin took a big stride toward retaining his figure skating Grand Prix Final title after building an imposing 12-point lead in the short program Friday.
The 20-year-old American skater landed a quadruple flip, triple axel and quad lutz-triple toe-loop combination in a near-flawless program to score 105.43 points for the lead, narrowly missing his personal best.
Olympic silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama of Japan was a distant second with 93.49 ahead of Saturday’s free skate after he fell on his opening quad lutz while skating to “The Sound of Silence.”
Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov was in the competition only because France’s Adam Siao Him Fa withdrew with an ankle injury. Shaidorov made the most of it, landing two quads on his way to 91.26 for third while skating to the “Dune” soundtrack.
Skating in his hometown, France’s Kevin Aymoz had a nightmarish start with falls on his first two jumps and placed last at 68.82.
Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin retained their Grand Prix Final title in the pairs event. The Germans had an early setback when Hase put her hand down while landing a jump combination but recovered to finish clear of the field with a 218.10 total.
Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara held on for second with 206.71 against a strong challenge from Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava, who were third with 205.78.
“This time was for sure much harder than last year,” Hase said. “Last year we didn’t come with any expectation, and this year as defending champion it’s for sure more pressure, so we just are so happy that we made it.”
They are the first pair to repeat as Grand Prix Final champion since 2012 by fellow Germans Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States took the lead in the ice dance with a score of 87.73 in the rhythm dance, ahead of Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri with 83.12 and Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson with 82.31. The ice dance concludes Saturday.
