Ilia Malinin extended his two-year winning streak and claimed the first Grand Prix of the season with a Margin of 40.05 points on Sunday, October 19, and he did so in a symbolic way: he returned to the same stage where he was last defeated in the competition.
The American figure skater finished second at the 2023 Grand Prix de France in Angers, and if there was ever a time to put those memories aside, it was the 2025-2026 Olympic season where Malinin comes in as the overwhelming favorite for men’s gold.
It was another skater who arrived for the 2025 edition of the Angers Iceparc French Grand Prix. With two world titles to his name and the crowd shouting his name, Malinin now skated under enormous pressure to succeed. Instead of succumbing to that pressure, Malinin soared.
He started counting the jumps on his free skate with a quad flip and then landed a triple Axel, quad Lutz and triple loop in succession. The second quad Lutz he performed, as part of the quad Lutz-triple flip jump combination, was under-rotated, but the next jump combination of quad-toe loop-triple toe loop was solid.
Although he lost some points on two spins, which were classified at level 3, Malinin later emphasized that he is not looking for perfection at this stage of the season.
“One of the things I did differently this year than all other years was I don’t have to worry about being in my best shape so early,” said Malinin. “This year I can really understand how much I have to do to be 100 percent what I want to be for the Olympics. I want to be 100 percent there, so now I know that sometimes I can make mistakes or that everything is not yet so perfect.”
Those mistakes were there in Angers, but in the grand scheme of things, given his dominant lead, they were insignificant. Malinin deserved 215.78 points for the free skate and 321.00 general.
What was more important for Malinin was the reception of his new free skate, titled “A Voice”.
“The approach for my program is to go through the story of life, about how you go through many obstacles, many struggles and many experiences and it’s almost a way for people to find their own way to better themselves, whether that’s physically, mentally or even spiritually,” Malinin said. “It really tries to show that life is about development, where you can learn a lot, go through a lot of pain, suffering and a lot of experiences. So, that’s it something I wanted to share with the world as my program is that everyone has their own path in life and it is really worth trying always be the best version of yourself.”
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