Japan's Shoma Uno repeated as men's figure skating world champion Saturday, scoring 196.51 in the free skate for a winning total of 301.14.
The Beijing Winter Olympic bronze medalist finished 5.11 points ahead of South Korea's Cha Jun Hwan, with 18-year-old rising American star Ilia Malinin rounding out the podium on 288.44.
Uno's victory capped off a successful ISU World Figure Skating Championships for the host nation at Saitama Super Arena near Tokyo.
Kaori Sakamoto also went back-to-back as women's champion, while Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara won Japan's maiden pairs world title.
Despite dealing with an ankle injury before the short program, Uno earned his highest segment score of the season on Wednesday to lead the second-place Malinin by 4.25 coming into the free skate.
With a vocal home crowd behind him, Uno delivered a solid free skate routine featuring five quadruple jumps. Overcoming a slight stumble on his second jump, a quadruple salchow, he executed his remaining elements confidently.
"This free program was far from perfect, but this was everything I could do at this moment," the 25-year-old Uno said. "I put everything out there. Each jump was very precarious, but I delivered the results."
Teenage "Quad God" Malinin opened with his vaunted quadruple axel but made a number of missteps along the way to 188.06, the third-highest free skate score behind Cha's 196.39.
The 21-year-old Cha, who moved up one place from the short program, became the first man from South Korea to stand on the world championship podium.
Having just missed out on a medal the last time Saitama hosted the world championships in 2019, Uno said this year's edition had been his best performance on home ice.
"Honestly, whenever we've had an international competition in Japan, I haven't done so well, and I think this the first time I can say I had a very good record," he said.
Among the other Japanese men, Kazuki Tomono finished sixth with 273.41, while Sota Yamamoto totaled 232.39 in 15th place.
Japan's Kana Muramoto and Daisuke Takahashi earlier on Saturday finished 11th in the ice dance competition won by Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates.
Related coverage:
Figure skating: Sakamoto defends world title in tight battle with Lee
Figure skating: Miura, Kihara win pairs, Uno leads men at worlds
