PYEONGCHANG, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Veteran Meagan Duhamel/Eric Radford and Patrick Chan of Canada took the lead at the figure skating team event after the pairs and men's short programs here on Friday.
The United States was ranked the second thanks to Alexa Scimeca Knierim/Chris Knierim and Nathan Chen's fourth place finish both in pairs and in men's.
Japan and Olympic Athletes from Russia both finished third with the outstanding performances by Shoma Uno and Evgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozoc, who topped the men's and pair's competition respectively.
China came in the sixth as Yu Xiaoyu/Zhang Hao finished the fifth in pairs while Yan Han ranked the seventh in the men's.
The 21-year-old Yan shook his head to questions in the mixed zone, and the twice Olympian was obviously disappointed with his two falling-downs onto the rink after triple Triple Axel and quad toeloop jumps, which cost him two points.
Skating into a re-arranged Swank Lake, the Chinese pair Yu and Zhang, however, are more relaxed and score 69.17 points to rank sixth in pairs.
Zhang, here for his fifth Olympics in PyeongChang, proved to be a strong support to Yu, an Olympic debutante, when she landed unsteadily after a triple toeloop jump at the beginning of the routine.
"I came here to enjoy the Games. The result doesn't matter so much, truly," said Zhang. "It's my fifth Olympics, but it's a fresh beginning for my partner Xiaoyu, who is a new comer and still adapting herself to the tight schedule and atmosphere of a top event.
"We took today's short program as a warm-up and we believe we are getting better and better in the following competitions and even the Beijing Winter Olympics four years later," said Zhang.
For the men's part, black horse Alexei Bychenko from Israel had led the men's short program with his flawless routine to score his season best 88.49 points until he was upstaged by Japan's Uno.
The 20-year-old Uno, silver medallist despite a toddling landing of quad flip jump, scored 103.25 points to secure the first place with a composed performance in the music of Winter by Vivaldi. Patrick Chan came in the third with 81.66., with Yan Han of China seventh in 77.10.
"It is my first time coming to the Olympics and I thought I would be very anxious, but I wasn't as anxious as I thought, and I'm satisfied," said Uno.
"I thought I was going to make a mistake on the quad flip and I did, but I was able to forget about it," he added.
The team event made its debut at the Sochi Games in 2014. It features 10 teams and each has one representative competing in men's singles, women's singles, pairs and ice dancing. They each perform a short program after which the top five teams progress to perform a free skate.
