Sixteen-year-old Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia capped a dominant debut season by winning a world championship with a record-setting free skate score.
Medvedeva earned 150.10 points on Saturday to break Yuna Kim’s record from the 2010 Olympics. She moved up from third after the short program to first to add to her Grand Prix Final and European titles.
Told she had set a record, Medvedeva started giggling then summed it up in English, “Wow.”
American Ashley Wagner skated last and sent the home crowd into a frenzy with a personal-best score that moved her from fourth to second, the first U.S. woman in a decade to win a medal at worlds.
Another Russian teen, Anna Pogorilaya, won bronze.
American Gracie Gold, who led after the short program, fell on her opening triple—triple combination to drop to fourth.
Medvedeva looked a bit hesitant during Thursday’s short program in her first senior worlds. But she was captivating from the start Saturday. She landed seven triple jumps with never a hint of trouble, throwing an arm into the air on many of them.
“I won’t realize quickly I won today because one year ago I was still skating juniors,” she said through a translator.
It was a performance both youthful and mature at the same time. The program opens with Medvedeva peering out into the crowd with a look of wide-eyed wonder.
When it was over, she thrust both fists into the air in triumph.
“Actually I don’t really have any emotions right now I left everything on the ice,” she said afterward.
Sitting in the kiss-and-cry area, the teenager came back out. She bopped her head to the music as she waited for her scores, squeezing her eyes shut and clutching a stuffed animal tight as the marks were about to be announced.
She finished with a total of 223.86 points.
No American woman had finished on the podium at worlds since Kimmie Meissner took gold and Sasha Cohen bronze in 2006.
Even with Gold’s mistakes, her score guaranteed that the drought would end it was just a question of whether it would be Gold or Wagner.
Wagner had the crowd shrieking from the moment she landed her triple flip-triple toe loop combination, and the powerhouse program earned her a big score for choreography and expression despite two under-rotated jumps. She earned 142.23 points for 215.39 total.
As the music ended, her jaw dropped in exhilaration, an ending that couldn’t have been more different from the last time she competed at TD Garden.
At nationals two years ago, she came in as the two-time defending champion then fell twice in her free skate to finish a distant fourth. Wagner was still selected for the Olympic team because of her previous successes, but the debate about whether she deserved the berth in Sochi stung.
Pogorilaya, 17, was the least accomplished of the three Russians coming in, finishing third behind Medvedeva and Elena Radionova at both the national championships and European Championships. But she skated two clean programs in Boston to again finish third this time against a much deeper field.
She received 139.71 points for 213.69 total.
