MILAN (AP) — Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea delivered the best free skate of their pairs career when the U.S. needed it most Sunday night, keeping the reigning champion Americans ahead of Japan with two events left in team figure skating at the Milan Cortina Olympics.

The women’s and men’s free skates were still to come at Milano Ice Skating Arena to decide the medals.

Kam and O'Shea scored 135.36 points for their program, which opened with “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics and finished with “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears. That was good enough to top the Canadians among the five teams to make it to the free skates, which kept the U.S. from dropping an important point to Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara.

The two-time world champs won the segment with 155.55 points, a career-best of their own by nearly eight points. Miura and Kihara's massive performance allowed Japan to cut a five-point deficit to the Americans at the start of the night to just two points.

The U.S. was sitting on 51 with Japan at 49 as they continued their duel for gold. Italy's Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii were third in the pairs event to leave their team with 45 points, four ahead of Canada and Georgia in the race for bronze.

In the women's competition, the U.S. swapped out world champion Alysa Liu for three-time reigning national champion Amber Glenn, who will be making her long-awaited Olympic debut. Kaori Sakamoto is back for Japan after winning the short program.

Yet the entire three-day competition ultimately could come down to the men.

After watching Yuma Kagiyama upset favored U.S. star Ilia Malinin in the short program, Japan benched him in favor of Shun Sato for the free skate. Malinin was headed back out for the Americans, the two-time and reigning world champion hoping to atone for a short program that was mediocre only by his standards by wrapping up a second consecutive team gold.

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