ST. LOUIS, Missouri – At age 21, Ilia Malinin already has redefined men’s figure skating. It’s hard to overstate the two-time world champion’s technical ability. Undefeated over a more than two-year span, earning record scores competition after competition, he pulls off elements once deemed impossible with apparent ease. As he takes to the ice for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis, Missouri, he all but is certain to claim his fourth national title – for what would be his 14th straight win.

After winning the Grand Prix Final nearly by 30 points, Malinin has had some time to reset. Breaking in a new pair of figure skating boots – never an easy process – he said he has made some tweaks to his two programs and is viewing this year’s national championships less as an end goal and more as a warm up for the biggest prize of them all: Olympic gold.

“This year [nationals] is really just kind of a checkpoint to kind of just see where I am,” Malinin said. “Then after that we'll see how I'll have to train. Either way, nationals is always a fun competition for me.”

In the Fall lead-up to the Grand Prix Final, Malinin took his events relatively easily. Holding off his signature quadruple Axel and lowering the overall jump difficulty of his programs, he paced himself before performing a historic seven quadruple jumps in a single program at the Final. 

With the Olympic Games exactly a month away, Malinin said he may take a similar approach to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. “I obviously want to be 100% at the Olympics, but I don't mind being at, let's say, 75% at nationals,” he said. “I'll just take things maybe a little slower, leading up to the Olympics and that way, I won't really burn myself out.”

As with many of the sport’s top athletes, Malinin has said he sees himself not just as an athlete but as an artist. Competing in often what appears to be a field of his own has afforded him room to experiment.

“I have a little more freedom with what I can do and with being able to play around with adding new, cool things into the programs – tricks or movements, stories or concepts,” Malinin said. “I'm not so pressured trying to compete with someone, so I'm able to be a little more in my own space and kind of challenge myself, which I personally think is really good for me to progress.”

While difficult to imagine how Malinin could improve from here, the phenom enjoyed teasing a quintuple salchow jump at the Grand Prix Final in practice. For years he’s delighted fans by incorporating an acrobatic move he calls a “raspberry twist” (Malinin’s last name closely resembles the Russian word for raspberry), and thanks to a rule change made by the ISU in 2024, a back flip in each of his programs.

Pushing the bar of figure skating limits has become the name of his game, and it’s easy to assume  if everything goes as planned in Milan Cortina in February, his name will soon become synonymous with Simone Biles, Michael Phelps and Serena Williams. 

Despite a strong focus on the 2026 Olympics, Malinin particularly is aware of developing the long term arc of his career. Late last month he stated he plans to compete through the 2034 Olympics, which will take place in Salt Lake City, Utah – a home Olympic Games. 

He also hasn’t been shy about hoping to bring figure skating back to its glory days, when competitions and shows filled arenas. But he knows that getting there means earning hardware and growing the fanbase from the ground up.

“I'm really happy to try my best to train up to those days of past Olympics and try my best to win this gold medal,” he said.

The 2026 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships will be airing live on USA Network and NBC and streaming on Peacock.