Sui and Han claim first gold medal of 2017 World Championships

Leading after the short program, Sui and Han recovered from a fall from the former to keep hold of top spot.

The duo finished with a new personal best free skate score of 150.83 points to finish with a total of 232.06 and win the gold, having claimed two previous silvers.

"At the end I was very excited and thought we could have won. I didn't know what score we would get, but I thought we did our very best, we gave a moving performance to the audience and the audience can feel our story and emotion," Han said.

Sui added: "The gold medal was our dream and we got step by step to the top of the podium. Our team, the coaches, the physiotherapists gave us a lot of help and made the dream come true. Sharing a goal gave us power and this power pushed us on to the top of the podium."

Germans Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot also recorded a personal best free skate score of 150.46 points to finish on 230.30 and claim silver, improving on last year's bronze medal.

And taking bronze this year were Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov of Russia, the European champions scoring 139.66 points in their free skate to finish on the podium.

Day two in Helsinki also saw the men's competition get underway, with Javier Fernandez of Spain scoring a personal best 109.05 points in the short program to take the lead.

The reigning world champion has Shoma Uno hot on his heels with a score of 104.86, while three-time world champion Patrick Chan of Canada broke the 100-point barrier for the first time in his career and sits third on 102.13.

Meanwhile, Brit Graham Newberry scored 62.04 points and finished 31st, meaning he doesn't advance to the short program.

Sportsbeat 2017