When the music ended, the two-time world champions broke down in tears having completed a new record skating program when they needed it most.
The team of Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara had just earned Japan its first ever gold medal in figure skating pairs — but they would have to wait for four more pairs to skate before it was official.
Victory wasn’t an impossible task for the pair, but they had their homework cut out for them Monday after a major error in the short program one day prior.
Not only did they make a dramatic, emotional comeback, but the pair skated 12 points higher than the second place finishers from Georgia and earning themselves a season best score.
The team of Miura and Kihara knew they had left everything on the ice.
Both skaters broke down in tears and embraced one another having just skated a nearly perfect final. It may go down as one of the most dramatic comeback stories of these Games.
The pair from Japan weren’t the only skaters making history Monday.
Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava earned silver, the first county’s first ever Winter Olympic medal. The pair from Germany won bronze.