Malinin rebounds from Olympics at the worlds with a personal-best short program

PRAGUE (AP) — Ilia Malinin bounced back from misfiring at the Milan Cortina Olympics by leading after the short program at the figure skating world championships on Thursday.

With a new haircut, Malinin showcased all that the spectators expected from the defending two-time world champion at O2 Arena.

He will go to Saturday’s free skate with a massive lead of more than nine points after a personal-best 111.29 score in the short program.

The performance showed the Olympic failure was behind him.

“It was a very supportive, very energetic crowd,” the 21-year-old Malinin said. “I felt every single piece of love and support from everyone out there. Just going on the that ice I had no expectations. I really just wanted to embrace the environment and experience the figure skating, and that’s all I really thought about the whole program.”

Known as the “Quad God,” Malinin opened with a quad flip and a combination of quad lutz and a triple toe loop. The only skater to have successfully landed a quad axel in competition performed only a triple version of his trademark jump.

French skater Adam Siao Him Fa nailed a perfect quad toe loop in combination with a triple toe loop plus a quad salchow for 101.85 points.

Aleksandr Selevko of Estonia was a surprise third after a personal best 96.49.

Japan's Shun Sato was fourth, while countryman Yuma Kagiyama — a two-time Olympic individual silver medalist — fell in a lutz attempt and was sixth.

Andrew Torgashev was seventh and fellow American Jacob Sanchez was 10th in his senior worlds debut.

Malinin helped the U.S. win the team gold in Milan and was heavily favored to win individual gold with an unrivaled program. His five-point lead over Kagiyama and Siao after the short program seemed insurmountable.

But in one of the biggest upsets in figure skating history, Malinin fell twice and made other glaring mistakes in a disastrous free skate, falling from first to eighth place.

Malinin previously said he succumbed to the pressure at his first Games.

On Thursday, he said it was “pretty difficult” rebounding from the Olympics.

“There’re always small things that can change the outcome of any performance,” he said, “so coming back from there it was really hard for few days. I kept thinking about it 24/7. I thought of so many different things I could have done differently to get a different outcome.”

Then, he decided to “to move on.”

"Maybe in a different universe I would have won the Olympics and maybe decided not to do the world championships but here I am. So, now I’m here and I can appreciate it and enjoy the sport of figure skating."

Olympic champion Mikhail Shaidorov from Kazakhstan was skipping the worlds.

Olympic pairs bronze medalists Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany led after the short program and produced a near flawless free skate to claim their first gold.

Hase and Volodin stayed on their knees for a while in the middle of the rink before hugging each other. With the result of 148.55 points for the best free skate for a total career-best of 228.33, they completed their collection of medals from the worlds after taking bronze in 2024 and silver last year.

“Tomorrow, I will wake up very very happy,” Hase said.

Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava of Georgia took silver with 218.41 points.

Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud of Canada earned bronze for their first podium at the worlds.

U.S. champions Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov who couldn’t compete at the Olympics because Efimova wasn’t yet a U.S. citizen didn’t avoid mistakes, among them a fall by Efimova on a triple toe loop. Their total score of 202.51 placed them sixth.

Another American pair Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe registered two falls and dropped to 16th.

Olympic champion Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan did not compete in Prague after winning Japan’s first Olympic pairs title last month.

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany perform during the pairs free skating at the Figure Skating World Championships in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Aleksandr Selevko from Estonia competes during the men's short program at the Figure Skating World Championships in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Adam Siao Him Fa from France competes during the men's short program at the Figure Skating World Championships in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Ilia Malinin from the United States competes during the men's short program at the Figure Skating World Championships in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Ilia Malinin from the United States competes during the men's short program at the Figure Skating World Championships in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Ilia Malinin from the United States competes during the men's short program at the Figure Skating World Championships in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s photo voter identification law was upheld on Thursday, as a federal judge set aside arguments by civil rights groups that Republicans enacted the requirement with discriminatory intent against Black and Latino voters.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs is a huge legal victory for Republican legislative leaders who passed the law in late 2018 — weeks after voters approved a constitutional amendment backing the idea.

North Carolina state Senate leader Phil Berger said in a news release that with Biggs' decision, “we can put to rest any doubt that our state’s Voter I.D. law is constitutional.”

Biggs had presided in spring 2024 over a non-jury trial in a lawsuit filed by the state NAACP, which argued that the ID requirement violated the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act. At trial, the NAACP alleged Republican legislators passed the voter ID law to entrench their political power by discouraging people historically aligned with Democrats from voting.

But lawyers for the state and Republican lawmakers defending the law argued that Republicans wouldn’t have passed one of the most permissive ID laws if they wanted to entrench themselves in state politics. They argued that the law is race-neutral and contains many more categories of qualifying ID than was allowed under a previously approved 2013 voter ID law that was struck down years ago.

The lawyers also said the General Assembly had legitimate state interests in building voter confidence in elections and preventing voter fraud. Still, nationwide voter identity fraud is rare.

State NAACP President Deborah Dicks Maxwell called the latest ruling in the case “deeply disappointing and ignores the real and documented barriers” that voter ID laws have on certain voters. No decision has been made on whether to appeal.

Even with the federal litigation, the 2018 voter ID law has been carried out since the 2023 municipal elections, after the state Supreme Court upheld the law in a separate lawsuit. Those elections have included the March 3 primary — nearly all of its results were certified on Wednesday.

In her 134-page order, Biggs, who was nominated to the court by President Barack Obama, said evidence in the trial record did suggest the burden to obtain IDs fell more on Black and Hispanic voters. As a result, a disparate number of racial minority voters would be among thousands who will not possess the required ID on Election Day, and “for many their vote will not count when the election is certified.”

Biggs said the state's history of race discrimination and voter suppression warrants finding that the law was enacted with discriminatory intent. But she wrote that court rulings since the lawsuit was filed — including one from a federal appeals court panel in the case — requires "this Court to assign less weight to the historical background” and “almost impenetrable deference to the presumption” that lawmakers approved it in good faith.

Biggs had previously issued in 2019 a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the 2018 law, saying it was tainted because the 2013 voter ID law was struck down on similar grounds of racial bias.

But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed her decision, writing that she had put too much emphasis on the past conduct of the General Assembly when evaluating the 2018 law.

So based on the “preliminary injunction record, the limited evidence presented at trial, and the arguments of counsel,” the court "concludes that it is compelled by controlling case law” to side with the state and legislative leaders, Biggs wrote Thursday.

North Carolina’s voter ID law offers free ID cars at the Division of Motor Vehicles and at county election offices statewide. People lacking photo ID at the polls should have their votes count if they fill out an exception form or bring in their ID to election officials before the final tallies.

In the separate state court lawsuit, the 2018 law was struck down initially. But when the state Supreme Court flipped from a Democratic to a Republican majority, the justices agreed to revisit the matter and proceeded to uphold photo ID.

Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring identification at the polls, 23 of which seek photo ID, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

FILE - Sasha Dix holds his, "I voted," sticker after voting at T.C. Roberson High School on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024, in Asheville, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek, File)