Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot of Germany came from behind to win the gold medal in the pairs figure skating competition at the Pyeongchang Winter Games on Thursday.
Savchenko and Massot started the day in fourth place after the short program, but the world silver medalists fell to the ice hugging after an enthralling free skate worth 159.31 points saw them snatch the gold with 235.90.
"I was positive after yesterday. I said to Bruno, we will write history today. And then everything happened as I had imagined it and it came true," said Savchenko, referencing the pair's world record free skate score.
"It is my moment. We celebrated the New Year together and we said 2018 will be our year and it became our year."
The gold medalists were the first from their country to win the pairs event in 66 years, adding to their momentous day.
"It was hard for me yesterday, but Aljona was there for me. She said, 'It is not finished. We still have the free program to come.' We did a gold medal program, we broke the record. It is amazing to come from fourth to first, it is incredible," said Massot.
Reigning world champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China were unable to hold their short program lead and took the silver medal in their Olympic debut with 235.47.
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"I was quite nervous, this being my first Olympic Games. We really wanted to do well, but simply fell too short in the end. But I hope that this will give us the motivation we need over the next four years to do well again at the Beijing 2022 Games," said Sui, who fought to overcome a training accident that left her with 12 stitches in her left leg.
"It's something we have to manage every day," said Han of his partner's injury. "On a scale of one to 10, the pain is probably at a seven or eight. We've stopped doing some of the harder moves in training and only did simple moves in practice this morning."
Two-time world champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada won the bronze with 230.15.
Japan's Miu Suzaki and Ryuichi Kihara failed to advance to the 16-pair free skate after finishing second to last in 21st place in the short skate on Wednesday.