Ilia Malinin landed seven clean quadruple jumps in one free skate at the ISU Grand Prix Final in Nagoya on 6 December 2025. No skater had ever done it before. The American scored a world-record 238.24 points and won his third straight Final title.
Third after the short, untouchable in the free
Malinin began the night in an unfamiliar position. A short program mistake on his quad Axel left him third, trailing two Japanese rivals. When his free skate music started, he opened with four quads in a row — flip, Axel, Lutz and loop — collecting more than 60 points immediately.
The packed IG Arena rose as he kept attacking. In the programme’s second half he delivered a second quad Lutz, a quad toe loop and a quad Salchow, all three in combination. Not a single jump was under-rotated.
Ten points beyond his own ceiling
The score beat his previous record by nearly 10 points. A technical mark of 146.07 and components of 92.17 gave him a margin of more than 40 points over the next-best free skate. His overall total, 332.29, placed him almost 30 points clear of Japan’s Kagiyama Yuma.
He had tried seven quads once before, in Grenoble a year earlier, and fallen short. This time every edge held. He had not lost a competition in two years, and the win tied Nathan Chen’s U.S. record of three Grand Prix Final golds.
A dream realised, a boundary gone
“This is one of the best skates I’ve ever had,” Malinin told reporters. “I had to fight for every single element and I was so glad I was able to do that in front of the Japanese crowd.”
He later added, “Being able to land all of those seven quads was definitely a dream of mine since the last few years, and it really gives me hope now for the future.” A night that began with a stumble ended with the sport’s technical ceiling lifted for good.
