China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong survived a fall to claim a first pairs gold at the world figure skating championships in Helsinki on Thursday.
The two-time world silver medallists led all the way to snatch gold ahead of Germany’s Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot after the free skating final at Hartwall Arena.
Skating to Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” the Chinese scored 150.83 points for their free skate and 232.06 overall, winning by a margin of just 1.76 points on Savchenko and Massot.
Ukraine-born Savchenko, 33, was bidding for a sixth world title having won five with her previous partner Robin Szolkowy.
The German pair, skating to Patrick Watson’s “Lighthouse”, scored 150.46 for the free skate and 230.30 overall.
Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov of Russia achieved 219.03 to take bronze with two-time defending champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada finishing seventh.
The Canadians finished seventh in the short programme as Radford struggled with a niggling hip muscle spasm.
And errors and a fall by Duhamel in their free skate to the music “Non, je ne regrette rien” ended their bid for a third consecutive title.
Earlier, Spain’s two-time men’s champion Javier Fernandez opened his title defence by leading the short programme.
Russia’s Evgenia Medvedeva will bid to seal her second straight women’s title on Friday when the ice dancing competition also gets under way.
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