MILAN -- Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara delivered Japan's first Olympic gold medal in pairs skating, earning a world-record score for their free skate Monday night to climb from fifth after their short program to the top step of the podium at the Milan Cortina Games.
The two-time defending world champions, whose uncharacteristic slip on a lift the previous night had left them playing catch-up, scored 158.13 points for their free skate. That gave Miura and Kihara a career-best 231.24 points and their long-sought gold medal to go with the silver they helped the Japanese team win last week.
Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava earned the first medal for Georgia at a Winter Games with their silver, scoring 221.75 points. Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany took bronze with 219.09.
The chaotic short program Sunday night had left some of the best in the world skating early and out of contention.
Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, the 2024 world champions from Canada, cost themselves about 10 points when Stellato-Dudek inexplicably fell while getting down from a lift. She also took a hard fall during their warmup for the free skate Monday night, sliding into one of the padded barriers and then flexing her shoulder when she got back up.
The 42-year-old Stellato-Dudek, who was born in the Chicago area, was undoubtedly envisioning a much different Olympic debut. The Canadian pair wound up with 192.61 points, putting them 11th among the 16 teams that made the free skate.
"Just to be out here on and skating on the ice was a privilege and really amazing," Deschamps said.
Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe, a private first class in the U.S. Army, took the lead by becoming the first team to break the 200-point barrier. Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii of Italy quickly knocked them from their perch despite a messy free skate. But the podium contenders were just starting to take the ice.
Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, the defending Olympic champions, bounced back from Sui's fall on their opening triple loop in their short program that left them in sixth place. They still had problems in their free skate, turning a triple salchow into a double, but their score of 208.64 points put them in first place with five pairs left to go; they finished fifth.
It wasn't a bad showing, given they only began their comeback last June following a two-year retirement.
Miura and Kihara were next up -- and they produced a score that proved impossible to beat. They were flawless on a triple toe-double axel-double axel sequence to start their program, set to music from the "Gladiator" series of films, while Miura landed with grace and elegance on their throw triple loop. And as other teams struggled with their salchows, Miura and Kihara's were clean, with their throw triple loop putting an exclamation mark on the program.
Kihara was emotionless after their short program, but he erupted with a roar when their free skate score was announced. Then he quietly dropped to his knees and hugged Miura when he learned they had won gold.
Elsewhere on the U.S. side, Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea did not have the kind of pairs free skate they envisioned. No doubt exhausted by performing for the fourth time at the Winter Games, the U.S. team struggled after a strong short program that had put them in seventh place, bringing their Olympic debut to a close with a ninth-place finish in the pairs event.
"We definitely did leave it all out there, just not in the way that I had thought that it was going to go," Kam said. "But I'm still so proud of everything that we've done here. I feel like all the work that we put in at home has carried through to this competition."
It was an encouraging couple of weeks for the American pairs contingent, which didn't even have two of its top three pairs in Milan because of citizenship issues.
"I love skating, and skating on Olympic ice is literally a dream coming true," O'Shea said. "This whole time that we've been here has been an amazing experience. It's definitely one where we're feeling a little tired by the end of it. But we're very proud of the whole body of work that we put out across the time that we've been here."
It's unclear how much longer O'Shea plans to compete after turning 35 last week, but Kam turned 21 in December and is still relatively new to pairs.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.