Chinese up-and-coming stars Sui Wenjing and Han Cong led a group of Olympic and world champions after the pairs' short program on Friday at the figure skating world championships here.
The world silver medalists duo scored 80.85 points for their high-energy performance. leaving Canada's defending champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford to second place on 78.18.
Russia's returning 2014 Olympic gold medalists and 2013 world champions, Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, skated into third place with 77.13 points.
Russia's Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov, 2014 Olympic and world silver medalists, posted 73.98 to stand in fifth.
The pairs compete in their final free skate on Saturday.
