Germany’s Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot, who won silver at the 2017 World Championships, claimed gold with a total of 235.90.

They exhibited a clean free program to receive a season best of 159.32 points, overcoming a fourth-place finish in the short program.

Reigning world champion Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China finished runners-up with 235.47 points in total, while former world champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada won bronze with 230.15.

Two-time European champions Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov of the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) were second in the short program but fell to fourth place due to mistakes in their free program.

Skating to music from Diane Justler‘s “Je suis qu’une chanson,” the North‘s Ryom-Kim pair made a clean triple twist lift and triple toe loop-double toe loop jump in the beginning of the program. They performed flawless triple jumps, steps, spins and lifts, while their lifts gave them big points -- 8.50 and 8.40 points were awarded to their reverse lasso lift and axel lasso lift, respectively.

But the North Koreans, two of the most globally competitive athletes from the reclusive country, were not satisfied with the results.

“As you see the scores, we have a long way to go,” Kim said after the free skating. “We’ve done much better in practices, but we fell short of that level today. We need more experience and guts.”

He said his team will keep working hard to set a fresh personal best at the World Figure Skating Championships slated for next month in Milan, Italy.

“Our goal is to break our own best scores again and again, and advance one step further and further. No steps backward,” he said.

The skater did not forget to give words of gratitude to the South Korean fans who welcomed and supported them enthusiastically during their performance.

“I want to say thank you to people in the South,” he said.

“Before skating, I was nervous. But when I heard them rooting for us, I was excited and gained energy from them.” (Yonhap)