'We started training very early to prepare for the season, but we didn't put too much weight on being specifically ready at a specific time,' Frazier explained. But they never faltered from their plan to focus on steady improvement rather than allowing placement to be the key metric for measuring their success as a team. It was a long season for the gold medalists, and it was not always a smooth ride, Knierim and Frazier admit.

On a personal level you're just stuck in a moment, and you just want to stay in that moment for a long time because you're just giving yourself that pat on the back that you know you did it.' Then you go from the Olympics to the World Championships to being World champions. 'It was just so much work that we had to put in and we started to see the results. 'Winning Worlds was just kind of like making the Olympic Team-it validated everything that Alexa and I did when we teamed up,' he said. Though they may be reluctant to include themselves in such an elite club, Frazier sees their coronation in France as validation of all the hard work and dedication that he and Knierim have put forth.

'I think it's so fresh and new that it's going to be something in 10 to 20 years that's really going to weigh differently than it does now.' 'Being part of this group is a wonderful thing to acknowledge and bring to light but I don't think Brandon and I have really processed being a part of that group right now,' Knierim said as they were about to kick off the American Stars on Ice tour. To put the significance of this accomplishment into perspective, the last time an American team won the World title, Jimmy Carter was President, bread was about 50 cents per loaf, and Gloria Gaynor topped the charts with her anthem 'I Will Survive.' Knierim and Frazier join Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner, who won their title in 1979 in Vienna, and Karol Kennedy and Peter Kennedy who were the first American team to garner gold all the way back in 1950 in Wembley, Great Britain.

The duo, in only their second season together as a team, ended the drought for American pairs last month in Montpellier, France, and captured the title by more than 20 points. It was a moment more than four decades in the making - Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazierare the 2022 World champions.

Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier Win First World Title for a U.S.

Ice skating game pomp