Sawt Falasteen - Miura, Kihara strike pairs gold for Japan in Grand Prix Final

The world silver medallists led all the way to push Knierim and Frazier into second spot after the free skating final in the Palavela with Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii taking a surprise bronze for hosts Italy in the six-team final.

The Japanese survived errors with Kihara, 30, touching down on a triple salchow and 20-year-old Miura doubling a toeloop, but confirmed their form this season after wins in Skate Canada and the NHK Trophy to set themselves up as favourites for the world championships at home in Japan next year.

"Today's performance was not our best but we are really happy to win the first Grand Prix Final as a Japanese team," said Kihara.

"We both made some mistakes so we are upset about that. Overall we think it is a great experience for us heading into the World Championships in March in Japan."

Skating to "Atlas: Two", Miura and Kihara produced a triple twist, throw triple Lutz and loop to score 136.50 points for the free skate and a total of 214.58 points overall to beat their American rivals by a slim margin of 1.3 points

Frazier paid for errors in his solo jumps in their routine to "Sign of the Times" and "Healed Broken Wings" with the Skate America champions achieving 135.63 for 213.28 overall.

"We we fought hard, we pushed hard, we had a lot of stamina at the end," Knierim said.

The Italians moved up to third following their skate to the "Cinema Paradiso" soundtrack despite Macii falling to push Canada's Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps down to fourth.

In the absence of the banned Russians and also the Chinese, who did not compete in the Grand Prix Series this year, all the pairs teams are first timers in the tournament.

In ice dancing, Canada's Piper Gilles and Paul Poirer opened up a slim 0.44 lead on three-time Grand Prix Final runners-up Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States after the rhythm dance section.

Gilles and Poirer's ChaChaCha and Rhumba selection earned them 85.93 with Chock and Bates scoring 85.49, for the Samba and Rhumba.

Italy's Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri are sitting third with 84.55 going into Saturday's free dance final.

None of the Olympic medallists from February are competing in ice dancing this season.

S.AbuJamous--SF-PST