The men’s free skate at 2024 Worlds in Montreal? One for the ages

You know, skating can be thrilling in so many ways.

Through living the music and every detail of the choreography, through incredible technique, through human and sports stories, through winning over adversity, overcoming challenges, testing one’s limits.

But even through the sound of the blades on the ice – calm, simple, satisfying.

Through a spin that changes shape and height with the musical accents, a well hidden surprise in the middle of a program. Or a spread eagle into Ina Bauer, and then seconds of stillness, allowing the program to settle, to find its inner rhythm.

Skating can truly be a space for everyone to feel, for everyone to be moved – even if we’re coming with different expectations, needs to be fulfilled, boxes to be checked in order for a program to become, in our view, your view, a highlight, a performance to come back to.

At least, that’s what we think.

And the men’s free skate at 2024 Worlds in Montreal had something for everyone to be excited about, and even more than that – so do allow us to share a few performances that stayed with us.

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by Florentina Tone
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The men’s free skate at 2024 World Championships in Centre Bell in Montreal hadn’t even started for an hour when the Frenchman Adam Siao Him Fa took the ice and skated like there was no tomorrow.

He was 19th after the short, had nothing to lose – and everything to gain.

Adam skated like he knew he could – and we all know he is a talent – and scored 206.90 points for his free program, and 284.39 in total. That score right there could have been enough for a World medal – and he had three more groups of skaters to go, 18 athletes in total.

We all knew it at that point: Adam’s fiery performance, four quads included, not letting any single landing, movement, detail run away from him, was going to be one of the free skates of the night, if not, indeed, THE skate.

[It turned out to be the second best one, looking at the scores.]

His coaches were right – “Adam, it’s you against you”.

And Adam who dug himself deep after the short program found his way to the light in the free.

And the way he pulled himself, the incredible ability to rebound, redeem himself – “La Remontada!”, the French commentators offered – show you just kind of athlete Adam is. And the lessons he learned here the hard way, about managing one’s demons, worries, doubts, will definitely make him a better competitor for the seasons to come.

[The thing is: the moment we saw Adam’s scores, and knew how big this was, we almost felt we wanted to fast-forward to the last group(s). The denouement felt painfully far… That feeling, gladly, didn’t last long – we came back to the thrill of the event, and we’ve selected a couple more moments for you & and for our tiny boxes of memories as well.]

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Kao Miura seems like a spinning top in the air – he rotates so fast, so beautiful, with a hypnotic effect almost. The thing is with spinning tops, they don’t always end up on their feet – and Kao really needs to try and manage that fabulous energy he has.

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Junhwan Cha’s Batman long program has all the qualities of a movie, charisma of the main character included. But Junhwan didn’t have the best of seasons, injury and all, and it’s difficult to shine at the biggest event of the season when you didn’t have the necessary growing steps behind.

But this program is a choreographic masterpiece and, if skated like one, will become a skating masterpiece as well. We hope he keeps it.

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[Throughout the men’s free we often asked ourselves: how much Adam’s scores, if known, have deflated – if they have – the other competitors?]

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The music from The Lion King really brought to light the warrior in Deniss Vasiljevs – clearly, it was a right move to take this former exhibition program, grow it and turn it into the free skate at Worlds.

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When the last group of skaters entered the ice, two hours later, Adam Siao Him Fa was still in the lead.

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Nikolaj Memola’s quadruple Lutz has become so reliable, so impressive – and Nikolaj himself is impressive, flying as if he were an eagle, wings spread in the air. Listen: 2 meters high, his skates and all, Nikolaj is something else in the world of skating.

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If Jason Brown decides to keep his Impossible Dream free skate until the end of his career, whenever this might be, our hearts will say: Thank You, Jason – because this is a masterpiece of a program, and he skates it like one.

For the second Worlds in a row, Jason’s Impossible Dream gets prolonged standing ovations, makes us feel all the feels and becomes A Moment of these championships. And if someone where to ask why do we love Jason, we’d say: that’s why. Because of performances like this one, that make your heart bigger, softer, warmer.

“You’re the best, you’re the best, oh my goodness”, Tracy Wilson says. And we concur.

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Lukas Britschgi rising to the occasion and having the skate of his life at Worlds in Montreal. And you could hear a Swiss bell accompanying his exit, as soon as the ovations were over. What a competitor Lukas has become – and it’s so great to have again a great talent from Switzerland in the men’s event.

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When the first seconds of music pour over him and he starts skating, is it as if Shoma Uno enters a trance – and we follow him no questions asked.

We just go with him, and his skating takes us to beautiful places.

It is always the case with Shoma’s free skate this season – to “Timelapse” and “Spiegel im Spiegel” – maybe the best he’s ever had. A program that shines a light on him, a soft, translucent light that goes so well with his expression, with the almost silence his blades glide across the ice.

And even if some of the jumping passes don’t work for Shoma on the day (and they don’t), and even those jumping passes are at the start or in the middle of the program, nothing derails the two-time World champion: Shoma Uno has a story to tell, he has a spell to cast on everyone watching.

Exactly how he wanted it to be.

“I put my heart into this free program – aimed to make everyone watching me perform happy – and this is the result I got. It truly reflects who I am, regardless of how I did today.

I visualized how I would do my free program beforehand and, looking back on everything, it was an exhilarating experience overall. Every day, I faced myself and practiced diligently, which instilled a sense of accomplishment within me. I am grateful for the cheers and the support from all spectators”.

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And when Shoma’s scores appear on the screen, and he is second behind the Frenchman, a camera backstage sees Adam Siao Him Fa springing out of his chair in the green room.

He knows it now – he has a medal! His first World medal!

[The medal turns out to be bronze – and we’ve just witnessed the most incredible jump in the World rankings, a historical comeback from 19th place after the short to 3rd place overall, with the second best free skate of the night. Asked by Skate Info Glace, Adam would say smilingly that all this waiting had made him really hungry 🙂 and it also gave him the chance to watch the entire competition; usually skating in the last group, he didn’t have the chance to do that.]

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In his comeback season after injury, after recovery, Yuma Kagiyama returned to his previous skating level – remember, he is an Olympic silver medalist – and even more than that.

With Carolina Kostner by his side, to help him grow performance-wise, alongside father-coach Masakazu Kagiyama, Yuma truly is a complete skater, complete package as many people in the skating world like to say, and offers the viewers one of the most satisfying and thrilling watching experience. He’s that talented, that gifted for this sport.

And, as of this March, Yuma Kakiyama is a three-time World silver medalist – and one of the male skaters to watch with eyes amazed the seasons leading to Milano-Cortina and, most certainly, past that as well.

Skating his heart out to “Run, In Your Black Eyes”, Yuma gets a standing ovation to remember. And, head in his towel, after seeing the scores, he’s looking for composure.

“I really wanted to show everything I have today and the warm cheer from the audience supported me throughout my performance. Although there was a mistake, I was able to deliver an almost perfect performance – and I am pretty happy about that”.

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Our jaw dropped on the floor while watching Ilia Malinin’s free skate at Worlds, with that huge TES, never seen before (137.18 points!) – and we’re still looking for that jaw.

That was a TOUR DE FORCE, capital letters needed, because what Ilia did technically we did not know possible, did not conceive possible.

To start your program with a quad Axel and to keep it going, by landing all those incredible jumps he masters so well, five other quads, and then to also try and perform in between, and to stay in one piece, physically, until the end – well, Ilia is not human and we don’t know what he is.

Correction, we do know: he is the 2024 World Champion, a title that he put all ounce of energy to get it.

Lying on his back on the ice at the end of his skate, palms on his face, he can’t believe what happened – we can’t believe it either. This 19-year-old has unthinkable resources – unthinkable, up to this point.

How was this even possible? Ilia didn’t know either.

“I’m in shock right now. The past couple of weeks have been so hard for me to train – and it was even a thought for me that I wouldn’t be able to compete at the World Championships.

But I got through, I trusted my training and my parents, my coaches, my team – they really helped me to get through. And I’m just so glad I was able to achieve it here.

There was a little voice in my head: No matter what, you have to keep fighting, you have to keep going. No matter how bad or how good you feel, you just have to know what you’re capable of, and stick to your muscle memory and the training you’ve been through”.

And we all know now what Ilia Malinin is capable of.

Making history for himself and for the sport.

[Story by Florentina Tone
All photos by Alberto Ponti / Montreal]