“Let’s get this party started!” That was Ilia Malinin’s message to the ticketholders on the Hub Vision screen before he took the ice at TD Garden on Thursday afternoon. The men’s short program at the World Figure Skating Championships had been underway for five and a half hours and more than three dozen competitors already had skated.

Reigning world champion Ilia Malinin delivered a season-best short program on Thursday night, giving the young American star a slim lead over Japan's Yuma Kagiyama in what has quickly become a two-man race to this year's title.