Ilia Malinin Leads Skate America After Short Program

Three-time and reigning World champion Ilia Malinin took the lead after the short program at 2026 Saatva Skate America in Everett, Washington, on Friday night.

Malinin opened his tribute routine to the victims of the January 2025 plane crash with a successful quad flip followed by a triple Axel and Level 4 camel spin. He hit a snag on his next jumping pass but finished strong with Level 4s for his step sequence and combination spin.

His program to "Cantata Memoria: For the Children" by Karl Jenkins earned the top technical and program component scores of the short program at 96.74 and 44.74 points, respectively. He takes a 5.45-point lead into Saturday's free skate.

"It felt a lot different skating at this event than in previous years," Malinin said. "I feel a lot more connected to the audience, a lot more connected to the music and the program itself."

"The short program for me is very sentimental and it's a very emotional piece that I'm getting into. There's a lot of tragedy and a lot of negative stuff that happens in the world and I think a lot of it is unnecessary, but we have to remember that we all have to unite as one and try to see the light in every possible situation."

Daniel Martynov made his Grand Prix Series debut, posting a season-best score of 84.17 to finish fifth in the segment. Jason Brown, competing for the seventh time at Skate America but for the first time this season, produced a score of 84.00 and sits sixth after the short program.

In the pairs short program, two-time and reigning U.S. pairs champions Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov equaled their personal-best international score of 71.85. They are less than one point out of the lead heading into Saturday night's free skate.

"We don't want to keep the Grand Prix Final in mind right now," Mitrofanov said. "Our focus is the free skate. We want to be in the now and feel ourselves and be in the moment."

Katie McBeath and Balazs Nagy earned a personal-best score of 67.62 for their short program to "Carmen" by Bizet. They sit fifth after the short program. Audrey Shin and Spencer Akira Howe generated 64.86 points for their program to "Photograph" by Cody Fry and "Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy.

The competition, the fourth stop in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series, is being held at the Angel Of The Winds Arena. The top six point-earners in each discipline qualify for the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final 2026, set for Dec. 10-13 in Chongqing, China.

Sources

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