Ilia Malinin breaks Nathan Chen record at Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships
Defending champion Ilia Malinin broke Nathan Chen's record for the largest leading margin in a U.S. Figure Skating Championships short program.
Malinin, 19, tallied 108.57 points, landing two quadruple jumps (toe loop and Lutz), but not attempting his signature quad Axel.
He distanced Max Naumov, last year's fourth-place finisher, by 18.85 going into Sunday's free skate in Columbus, Ohio.
It's the largest short program margin for any discipline since the 6.0 scoring system was thrown out after 2005.
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Jason Brown, a two-time Olympian whose breakout came out at 2014 Nationals, is third thanks to strong artistic scores despite falling on a triple Axel.
At 29, Brown can become the oldest man to make a U.S. podium since Todd Eldredge won the 2002 title at 30.
Chen had the previous short program margin record of 17.72 points set at the 2017 Nationals, the first of his six consecutive U.S. titles. Chen won the 2022 Olympic title and hasn't competed since.
Already this season, Malinin earned the biggest international title of his career in winning December's Grand Prix Final over two-time world champion Shoma Uno of Japan.
The three-man U.S. team for March's world championships in Montreal will be announced after nationals. Malinin took bronze at worlds last year.
Nationals continue later Friday with the women's free skate, live at 8 p.m. ET on NBC, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app and Peacock.
