Jason Brown, star in his own right, bears witness to another supernova lighting up U.S. men's skating

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Jason Brown, star in his own right, bears witness to another supernova lighting up U.S. men's skating


COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jason Brown has spent the past eight years as a skating star competing in the national championships against a supernova.

First it was Nathan Chen, who overwhelmed the field while winning six straight U.S. titles en route to the 2022 Olympic gold medal.

Now it is Ilia Malinin, on his way to a second straight U.S. title after scoring 108.57 points to win Friday afternoon’s short program at Nationwide Arena by a whopping 18.85 points over Max Naumov.

“The level of skating just continues to be elevated year after year,” said Brown, a two-time Olympian and 2015 U.S. champion, who was less than a point behind Naumov.

“Nathan just kept pushing and pushing and pushing the sport. Ilia is doing the same thing. I think it’s incredible. Mad respect.”

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Jumps alone won't spring Malinin to top of world

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Jumps alone won't spring Malinin to top of world

At 18 years old, Ilia Malinin already has reached immortality in figure skating for technical achievement, being the first to land a quadruple Axel jump in competition.

The self-styled “Quadg0d” already has shown the chutzpah (or hubris?) to go for the most technically difficult free skate program ever attempted at the world championships, including that quad Axel, the hardest jump anyone has tried.

It helped bring U.S. champion Malinin the world bronze medal Saturday in Saitama, Japan, where he made more history as the first to land the quad Axel at worlds.

But it already had him thinking that the way to reach the tops of both the worlds and Olympus might be to acknowledge his mortal limits.

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