The couple were substitutes for Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, with the world and European champions trying to preserve their energies for the individual pairs competition, and Stolbova and Klimov did not disappoint.
From the moment they nailed a sky-high throw triple flip, the crowd were delirious as the duo whizzed around the ice, showcasing their gravity-defying lifts and nifty footwork to the soundtrack of 'The Addams Family'.
Their score of 135.09 was more than five points ahead of nearest rivals Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch of Canada.
Going into the final day of the team event, Russia lead with 47 points. Canada (41), the U.S. (34) Italy (31) and Japan (30) complete the top five with three segments of the competition remaining.
(Reporting by Pritha Sarkar, editing by Ed Osmond)
