Canada's Moore-Towers, Marinaro 6th in pairs at figure skating worlds
Reigning Olympic champs Ajona Savchenko and Bruno Massot take gold
Canada's Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro skated to a personal-best score of 133.84 in the pairs free skate en route to a sixth-place finish at the world figure skating championships in Milan, Italy.
Their mark was the fourth-highest posted on Thursday as the duo finished with an overall score of 204.33.
The skaters from St. Catharines, Ont., and Sarnia, Ont., respectively, entered Thursday's free skate in 10th place.
The pair came into the competition with very little time to train after Moore-Towers sustained an ankle injury at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea last month.
Despite getting off to a rough start, with an uneven side-by-side jump and just hanging on to a throw triple loop, they recovered with side-by-side triples and a throw triple Salchow.
"We are extremely happy," Moore-Towers said. "We had a tough couple of weeks leading into this competition with not much training to rely on. We didn't have that same confidence, so this is a testament to how hard we worked all season."
Germany's Ajona Savchenko and Bruno Massot — the reigning Olympic champions — were golden once again with an overall score of 245.84. The pair had the highest score in the free skate (162.86) and won their first world championship title together in three appearances.
Russia's Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov captured silver with an overall score of 225.53 while the French tandem of Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres took home bronze with a score of 218.36.