Ilia Malinin began his Olympic season in devastating form, winning the Grand Prix de France by an extraordinary 40-point margin to underline his dominance of men’s figure skating.
The 20-year-old American, nicknamed the Quad God, landed five quadruple jumps in his free skate on Sunday in Angers to finish with 321.00 points overall – well clear of France’s three-time defending champion Adam Siao Him Fa on 280.95. Georgia’s Nika Egadze was third with 259.41.
A slight under-rotation on one quad was the only obvious flaw, but Malinin felt there was plenty left to polish.
“I think I’ll be improving a lot more,” he said. “I think I can take away a lot from this competition. It was such fun and I’m really looking forward to the future season.”
It extended Malinin’s unbeaten run to nearly two years since his last defeat, at the same event in 2023. Remarkably, he did not need to attempt his trademark quadruple axel, a jump only he has ever landed in competition.
The Grand Prix de France, first of six events leading to December’s Final, serves as an early test for contenders ahead of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in February.
There was cause for celebration for the home crowd as Olympic ice dance champion Guillaume Cizeron and his new partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry produced a captivating free dance to win gold at their first international competition together.
Third after the rhythm dance despite a fall at the end of the programme, they climbed to victory thanks to a sweeping performance to the soundtrack of The Whale, scoring 133.02 in the free and 211.02 overall – 0.8 points ahead of Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson (210.24).
“It’s really heartwarming to be at home with this amazing crowd and this amazing partner,” Cizeron said. “We were really looking forward to doing our debut here and it couldn’t have gone better.”
“There’s always apprehension, of course,” he added. “But I think that with experience and each other’s energy, we manage to let go and get into our characters and the magic of the moment.”
