Montpellier (France) (AFP) - Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier became the first Americans in 43 years to win pairs gold at the world figure skating championships on Thursday with Japan poised for a podium sweep of the men's event.
Shoma Uno led a Japanese 1-2-3 in the men's short programme in the absence of Olympic and reigning world champion Nathan Chen of the United States and Japanese star Yuzuru Hanyu through injury.
Knierim and Frazier sealed the first gold of the competition amid drama after their nearest rivals and fellow Americans Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy Leduc were forced to retire after a fall in the free skating final.
Cain-Gribble fell three times during their performance, with the 26-year-old stretchered off the ice appearing concussed in southern France.
Knierim, 30, and Frazier, 29, took to the ice just after, leading the way for the second day to win with 221.09 points.
They become just the third American pairs to win world gold and first since Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner in 1979.
"Congratulations to Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier on becoming the 2022 world pairs figure skating champions, your gold medal performance will be remembered forever," the 1979 champions said in a statement.
Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara claimed silver, 199.55, with Vanessa James and Eric Radford, moving up from fifth to take bronze for Canada with 197.32.
It was the first medal together for James, 34, and Radford, 37, who had successful skating careers with their previous partners.
Radford won two world titles and Olympic bronze medal with previous partner Meagan Duhamel while 34-year-old James was European champion and world bronze medallist with Morgan Cipres.
Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong were not competing while Russia, who took silver and gold at the Beijing Games, are banned from competing because of their country's invasion of Ukraine.
The top five from the Winter Olympics last month did not compete leaving the way open for the Americans to take their first gold having finished sixth in Beijing.
Uno top of Japanese trio
Earlier Uno bettered his own personal best score by four points as the 24-year-old chases a first gold after two runner-up spots at the worlds.
The Olympic bronze medallist scored 109.63 points with compatriot Yuma Kagiyama, silver medallist at the recent Beijing Games, achieving 105.69 points and Kazuki Tomono posting 101.12 heading into Saturday's free skating final.
"I managed to pull off my performance exactly as I always do in practice," said Uno, a three-time Olympic medallist, who is coached by former Swiss world champion Stephane Lambiel.
Skating to the music of two Oboe Concertos, Uno opened with a quadruple flip and followed up with a quadruple toeloop-triple toeloop, triple Axel and level four spins and footwork, as he looks to better his two silver medals behind Hanyu in 2017 and Chen in 2018.
Kagiyama showed nerves after his surprise Olympic silver medal, dropping points for with a shaky triple Axel in his his skate to Michael Buble's 'When You're Smiling'.
"Unlike the Olympics, I was a bit nervous," admitted the 18-year-old.
Tomono, a last-minute replacement for Kao Miura, broke the 100-points barrier for the first time in his career.
American teenager Ilia Malinin, 17, competing in his first world championships is fourth, after improving his personal best score by more than 20 points, with 100.16.
Russian skaters have been banned from competing at worlds following their country's invasion of Ukraine.
Ivan Shmuratko, a native of Kyiv, and the only skater from Ukraine competing at worlds qualified for the free programme in 22nd position.
If he took three days to reach Montpellier, "the word difficult does not describe any situation here," said 20-year-old Shmuratko who instead of the usual costume wore the blue T-shirt of the Ukrainian team.
"Skating is not difficult, nor coming here for the worlds.What is difficult is when your loved ones die under the bombs, it is to be in Ukraine.That is difficult.Everything else ..."
"It's important for Ukraine to have athletes who represent it on the international scene," he added.
