Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara became the first all-Japanese team to win a pairs medal at the figure skating world championships on Thursday when they earned a silver medal in Montpellier, southern France.
With the top five pairs from last month's Winter Olympics missing from the event, Americans Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier took advantage to win the United States' first pairs gold at worlds in 43 years, scoring 221.09 points.
Miura and Kihara scored 199.55 points to secure three pairs quota spots for Japan in next year's worlds in Saitama, and Canada's Vanessa James and Eric Radford took bronze with 197.32.
"I'm happy with the medal but I have regrets. We hope to come back stronger next season," Miura said.
"We weren't able to deliver our best skating but I'm really happy to have won Japan's first pairs medal in 10 years and the first as (an all-Japanese) team. I want to thank my partner," Kihara said.
Miura and Kihara, who stood in third after the short program, struggled with their side-by-side jumps in their free skate. While the throw triple lutz was solid, Miura fell on the throw triple loop.
The only other time a Japanese skater finished on the pairs podium at worlds was in 2012 when Narumi Takahashi and her Canadian partner Mervin Tran won bronze.
The Russians were banned from the competition because of their nation's invasion of Ukraine while China chose not to send skaters.
Earlier in the day, Shoma Uno led the way as Japanese figure skaters swept the top three men's short program spots.
Uno, the bronze medalist at last month's Beijing Olympics, flashed a pair of quad jumps before finishing with a stunning triple axel en route to a career-best 109.63 points at the Sud de France Arena.
Olympic silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama was second, while compatriot Kazuki Tomono was third. Beijing Olympic gold medalist Nathan Chen is not competing at the event for the United States.
"I hadn't been able to skate the kind of short program I could be proud of. But I always felt that if I could just skate a really clean one, I could get a super score, and I did," Uno said.
Kagiyama, last year's world silver medalist, stepped out of a triple axel in an energetic and crowd-pleasing program that scored 105.69, less than three points off his personal best from the Beijing Games, to place second.
"Coming right after the Olympics, I came here and was able to perform without any nerves at all and put things together well," Kagiyama said.
Tomono, making his first appearance at the worlds since finishing fifth in 2018, scored a personal-best 101.12.
"This all feels very strange to me," Tomono said. "My first task will be to put this behind me, and go out and do well in the free skate, by which I mean skate so that I'll leave here with no regrets."
The men's free skate is scheduled for Saturday.
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