Both of the other U.S. teams also earned all level fours on their elements, and their strong original dances resulted in all three U.S. teams sitting in the top 10. Meryl Davis & Charlie White are currently eighth and had the fourth best technical score of the original dance, and Melissa Gregory & Denis Petukhov are 10th.

Belbin & Agosto, the reigning World bronze medalists, were fifth after the compulsory dance. They gained ground on the leaders by collecting the highest technical elements score of the original dance. They trail leaders Albena Denkova & Maxim Staviski of Bulgaria and Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon of Canada.

Belbin laughed that the key to their success today might have been running into the boards – which she did just a few seconds into the program. She had to put her hands on the board to keep from hitting it with her feet.

“We didn’t actually have (an original dance) practice in this arena before, and it doesn’t have hockey lines like the other arena,” Belbin said. “I think we just started our beginning too close to the boards. I’m staring at Ben the entire opening, and I don’t look away from him. So by the time I stepped forward to see where I was, it was too late. But I recovered all right. The rest of the program could have gone better had I not been disappointed and distracted by that little bobble.”

Davis & White, the 2006 World Junior bronze medalists, moved up two places to eighth overall with another one of Igor Shpilband and Marina Zoueva’s technically packed programs. Their original dance score was a personal best (55.82). Their youth was reflected in the lower program component scores, and both know that working more on passion is in their future.

“Now that we have the technical, we really want to focus just on speed and a lot of relating to each other,” White said.

Skating earlier in the day, Gregory & Petukhov’s score held up well for the rest of the day, and they also moved up a spot to 10th overall. This is their first competition since the 2007 State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships, as an injury to Petukhov forced them to withdraw from the Four Continents Championships.

“I don't think it (the injury) affected the training, but it was definitely more challenging,” Petukhov said. “You never like when something hurts.”

The World Championships continue Thursday with the men’s free skate. The ice dancing competition concludes with the free dance Friday afternoon.

– U.S. Figure Skating –
U.S. Figure Skating is the national governing body for the sport of figure skating in the United States as recognized by the United States Olympic Committee and the International Skating Union. U.S. Figure Skating is comprised of approximately 1,450 member clubs and Basic Skills programs representing nearly 200,000 members. U.S. Figure Skating is charged with the development of the sport on all levels within the United States, including athletes, officials, sanctioning of events and exhibitions, and establishing the rules and guidelines by which the sport is governed.