PRAGUE, March 26 (Reuters) - American Ilia Malinin banished the ghosts of his Olympics nightmare on Thursday, skating into the lead after the men's short programme at the World Championships, while Germany's Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin captured pairs gold.
A month after Malinin's shock eighth-place finish in Milan, the 21-year-old "Quad God" opened with a huge quadruple flip, followed up with a quadruple Lutz, and delighted the crowd with a backflip to record a personal best 111.29 points, putting him on track for a third successive world title.
"I was definitely coming back to prove to myself that (the Olympic result) was a one-time thing," Malinin said. "But now I realise this is much more than just skating, it's being able to go and enjoy and have fun.
"Coming here I had no big expectations. It's been a lot. After the music ended I was relieved and thought 'it's done.'"
Fabienne Hase and Volodin, bronze medallists at last month's Olympics and leaders after the world short programme, doubled their planned triple Salchows in their one error on the night to score 228.33 for their first world title.
"You go to bed and you're always like, oh, it would be so nice to wake up the next day as a world champion," Fabienne Hase said. "So it's always in your mind. You try to not think about it too much, but now it's happened, tomorrow I will wake up very, very happy."
Olympic silver medallists Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava of Georgia were second with 218.41, losing precious points when Metelkina fell on their throw triple loop.
Canadians Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud scored 216.09 for bronze in a field missing Japan's Olympic champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara.
Malinin had arrived in Prague with redemption in mind after a collapse at the Olympics he said was caused by pressure and the magnitude of the moment.
He had been overwhelming favourite for gold in Milan, but crumbled under the weight of expectations. His free programme had unravelled in stunning fashion as he managed to execute only three of his planned seven quads cleanly.
"It's nothing specific," he said, regarding refocusing after the Olympics. "I tell myself that it's in the past already, it's over, you have to get up and keep going. Everything happens for a reason.
"As for (Saturday's) free, we'll see a programme being finished, that's for sure."
Adam Siao Him Fa of France heads into Saturday's free programme in second place with a score of 101.85, and Estonian Aleksandr Selevko is a surprise third with 96.49.
Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, the shock Olympic champion in Milan, is not competing at the world championships.
Olympic silver medallist Yuma Kagiyama of Japan was sixth on Thursday after a fall on his triple Axel.
Malinin's short programme score on Thursday was just shy of American Nathan Chen's world record of 113.97 set in 2022.
(Reporting by Lori Ewing, editing by Ed Osmond, Christian Radnedge and Pritha Sarkar)
