The United States, which hasn't had a top-five finish in the pairs free skate in 20 years, held an early lead on Saturday.
Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier scored a 138.45 in the free skate at the 2022 Winter Olympics to jump to the top of the leaderboard at the time with a combined score of 212.68, both of which were personal bests.
The duo, with a perfect throw triple loop, received a technical score of 68.97 and component score of 69.48 while performing to a version of Coldplay's "Fix You." That combined their sixth-place finish in the short program to place them ahead of Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara (211.89) with five pairs left to skate at the time.
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China's Peng Cheng and Jin Yang then jumped ahead of Knierim and Frazier and into the lead with a free skate score of 138.74 for a combined total of 214.84.
The powerhouse pairs that followed then took their places atop the podium. ROC's Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galiamov scored a 154.95 in the free skate to take the lead with a combined score of 237.71, jumping ahead of teammates Aleksandra Boykova and Dmitriy Kozlovskiy, who scored a 220.50. That bumped Knierim and Frazier to fourth with the top two pairs remaining.
Still to perform in the free skate are gold-medal favorites, China's Sui Wenjing and Han Cong. The pair set a short program record with a score of 84.41 on Friday.
