By sportswriter Li Jia
SAITAMA, Japan, March 21 (Xinhua) -- China's Sui Wenjing/Han Cong soared to the pairs gold medal at the 2019 ISU Figure Skating World Championships in Saitama, Japan, on Thursday.
Skating to Rain in Your Black Eyes by Ezio Bosso, Sui/Han delivered a nearly perfect performance, hitting a triple toe-double toe-double toe combination, triple twist, triple Salchow, throw triple flip and throw triple Salchow as well as level-four lifts. They earned 155.60 points for the free skate and moved up from second to first at 234.84 points, their season best, to win their second world title.
"It's a magic day for us," said Han. "It's wonderful to be back to top of the world. I enjoyed the free program so much that I wanted to perform more. I hope the season can continue, but it is over, so we will start preparing for next season."
Overnight leaders Russia's Evgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov, fourth at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, picked up 147.26 and slipped to second at 228.47, while another Russian pair Natalia Zabiiako/Alexander Enbert took the bronze in 217.98, who got 144.02 in free skate. China's Peng Cheng/Jin Yang came fourth in 215.84.
Sui/Han went through a tough season, much like they've had before the 2017 World Championships. After winning a silver at Pyeongchang Games, Sui injured her foot and was sidelined most of the season.
They missed the 2018 World Championships as well as the Grand Prix series. The Four Continents Figure Skating Championships was their debut this season in international competition.
"We are very happy to have shown our best performance and to win this Championship," said Sui, who won the Four Continents but was only 0.06 point better than the runners-up. "We are better than we were at the Four Continents.
"We had a tough time this season. We could not prepare so well and did not have much time to practice. Our coaches and our team gave us a lot of support and we knew we can make it and get the title. Winning the second time was harder and it was a team effort.
"I am so happy that we performed our best today. I remember the last time we skated two clean programs at worlds was in Shanghai."
Sui/Han took a silver at the 2015 Shanghai World Championships.
Another Chinese pair, Peng/Jin, improved a lot this season in both their jumps and exhibition. They turned in a clean program to "La Vie en Rose", but nevertheless dropped from third to fourth.
"It's a little sad we didn't get a medal," said Peng. "But we did our best."
2019 European Champions Vanessa James/Morgan Cipres of France rallied back from a disappointing short program, coming third in the free skating and pulling up from seventh to fifth on 215.19 points.
Youngsters Aleksandra Boikova/Dmitri Kozlovskii of Russia placed sixth in a strong World Championship debut with 210.30 points.
