Knierim and Frazier, who won with a total of 221.09 points, had to skate just after the evacuation of the ice in full performance after three falls by their compatriot Ashley Cain-Gribble, associated with Timothy Leduc.

The Japanese Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara are silver medalists (199.55).

And Vanessa James, 2019 European champion for France but who now skates for Canada, and Eric Radford, her new partner, bronze medalists (197.32).

Knierim (30) and Frazier (29), already in the lead after the short program the day before, perfectly knew how to take advantage of the space left vacant by the main competitors in the category: the top 5 of the Olympic Games-2022 absent, the two Americans, sixth in Beijing in February, climbed to the top step of the podium, when they had never done better than seventh at the Worlds so far.

The story is also beautiful for Vanessa James (34 years old).

Pushed to hasten the end of his career after the questioning at the end of 2019 of his previous partner, Morgan Ciprès, in the sending of obscene photos to a young skater of thirteen years who frequented the ice rink in Florida where they had been training since 2017, she finally decided to seriously put on her skates a year ago alongside Radford (37), also then retired after two world champion titles (2015 and 2018) and Olympic bronze in 2018 with Meagan Duhamel .

James has been skating for Canada, the country where she was born, since the beginning of this Olympic winter.

And here she is again on a world podium, in bronze, as in 2018, then with Ciprès.

James and Radford were fifth after the short program.

The story, on the other hand, is dramatic for Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy Leduc, stopped in the middle of a free program when the skater fell for the third time and could not continue.

First remained on the ice, then staring into space when her partner helped her up, the 26-year-old American was evacuated on a stretcher.

No information on his state of health has yet been communicated.

Cain-Gribble and Leduc had placed second in the short program the day before.

The United States had not known any more world gold in pairs for more than forty years.

It was in 1979 precisely.

© 2022 AFP