World champions Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov from Russia set a new world record score for the short program to get their bid for a second Olympic figure skating gold.
Trankov and Volosozhar performed flawlessly to "Masquerade Waltz" by Aram Khachaturian to score 84.17 points. It bettered the 83.98 they set on their way to a third European title in January at the Iceberg Skating Palace.
Germany's Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, four-time world champions and Olympic bronze medallists, are sitting second with their new season's best 79.64 for error-free "Pink Panther" routine. The third place took another Russian pair – Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov (75.21).