Ilia Malinin: “I’m always telling myself to go my own way”

Ilia Malinin (20) won his first Grand Prix event with 40 points to spare and proved once more that he currently can beat only himself. The two-time World Champion accomplished that even though he was not in top shape.

How do you feel?

Ilia: I'm not here at 100%  healthy so that's why I'm kind of taking it one day at a time and making it nice and slow to not push over and do everything for the end of the season. I would not go into detail (about his health) but it's still we're working things out it's been a few tough few months that I've been mentally physically and mostly very unstable so it's just something that's part of figure skating that you have to deal with. Overall I'm just very happy to be back here in this environment in Angers.

I was not sure if I will maybe just take all the Grand Prix series off and give me some time to rest and really recover and maybe find some other challenges to go to during that season. But I think that just feeling how confident I was in my support and the team behind me (made me come to the Grand Prix). Of course the medical team, they were really able to bring me back to 80% of my health.