Two-time world champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White set a new world record score in the short dance to move closer to giving the United States a first Olympic ice dancing gold on Sunday.
Davis, 27, and White, 26, skated a foxtrot and quickstep to “My Fair Lady” to lead reigning Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada by 2.56 points at the Iceberg Skating Palace.
The Americans, the Olympic silver medallists, scored 78.89 points with the Canadians achieving 76.33 for their skate to “Dream a Little Dream”, “Muskrat Ramble” and “Heaven”.
Russia’s Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov scored a personal best 73.04 for their skate to “Bei mir bist du schoen” and “Sixteen Tons”, to put them third ahead of France’s Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat, 72.75.
Russians Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev scored 69.97 and are in fifth position going into Monday’s free dance.
“That’s more like it,” said Moir, after errors in their routine during the new team event where they won a silver with Canada a week ago.
“That’s the strongest we’ve skated this season. We did what we needed to do tonight. We like our chances.”
Virtue added: “We certainly felt more like ourselves out there tonight. We created the moment we wanted to create. I don’t think we could have done it much better than we did tonight.”
Virtue, 24, and Moir, 26, thrilled a home crowd when they took the gold at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, and they don’t want to let their title go without a fight.
“We sat in the ‘kiss and cry’ and kind of looked at each other and said, “‘It does matter’,” said Virtue.
They are bidding to become just the second pair to win consecutive ice dancing gold after Russians Pasha Grishuk and Yevgeny Platov in 1998.
But Davis and White have won 14 of the last 20 championships contested in this event, and bettered their own previous record of 77.66 in the short dance achieved at the Grand Prix final by 1.23 points.
Both the Americans and Canadians train together in Detroit with Russian coach Marina Zueva.
Both Russian couples have already won gold in the new team event last Sunday in which the Canadians finished silver medallists and the Americans took bronze.
Ice dancing is a different discipline and less athletic than pairs skating.
It resembles ballroom dancing — the dancers have to stay close together and there is less lifting and more intricate, rhythmic footwork.