Reigning world champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong from China lead the field after the pairs’ short program on Wednesday, setting them up for China’s first pairs gold medal since 2010.
Their emotional, solid short program to K.D. Lang’s “Hallelujah” scored 82.39 points.
Reigning European champions Yevgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov sit second with 81.68 points. They represent the Olympic Athletes from Russia.
Already gold medalists at these Games with Canada in the team event, Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford skated “tentatively,” according to skating analysts Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir. The two-time world champions currently sit in third place with 76.