Skating to music from the television series "Succession," Malinin opened her free skate with a quadruple jump and performed five more quadruple jumps in front of a stunned crowd.
Malinin, 19, a student at George Mason University, performed four jumps in an outfit resembling a classic tuxedo. Malinin, who grew up in Fairfax, was the only skater to perform this jump in competition. Stating that she first performed the jump in 2022, Malinin said, "There was a little voice in my head: 'No matter what happens, you have to keep fighting, you have to keep going, no matter how bad you feel, you just have to know that you can do it.
The gold medal was the second for the United States at this World Championships after Madison Chock and Evan Bates won the ice dance earlier on Saturday.
Malinin said she started skating last fall with the theme "Succession" but has not yet watched the series. "I don't have an HBO subscription, but I would definitely watch it if I did," she said in an interview.
Malinin said he chose the Succession theme partly because it had not yet been used in figure skating, a sport in which music selections are often repeated, and said that in the previous season he created a program with a selection of music from the Euphoria series.
Malinin said that he worked with choreographer Juris Razgulajevs for his free skate, which was composed of Euphoria music, and his performance with the Succession theme, in which he received the highest score he has ever received in a free skating competition, was developed by choreographer Shae-Lynn Bourne.
Malinin said that learning to do the quadruple jump that brought him the world record motivated him to "be an innovator and a game-changer."
