SEOUL, South Korea - The perfect season continues for Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford.

Canada's top pairs team have a commanding lead after Thursday's short program of the Four Continents figure skating championships.

"We are really proud of our skate today, it's an indication of how we train at home," Duhamel said. "We weren't 100 per cent comfortable at the start but when the music began, our training and muscle memory kicked in."

Duhamel, from Lively, Ont., and Radford, from Balmertown, Ont., are two-time world bronze medallists, and have won every competition they've entered this season, including the Grand Prix Final in December.

They scored 75.67 points Thursday, recording their highest ever artistic scores for a short program.

"Our artistic score is something we are always striving to improve upon," Duhamel said. "The best feeling is when you can keep improving as the season goes on. A good long program (Saturday) here will set us up well for the world championships."

Chinese teams are second and third. Peng Cheng and Zhang Hao scored 69.81 points, for second, followed by Sui Wenjing and Han Cong (69.19 points).

The pairs free program will be Saturday.

Canada's ice dance teams sit in third, fourth and fifth after the short dance. Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the U.S. are the leaders with 70.38 points, while American siblings Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani were close behind in second with 69.65 points.

Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje of Waterloo, Ont., winners of this season's Grand Prix Final, scored 68.31 for third.

"We felt great heading into the performance," said Weaver. "We skated really well. We felt it was our best this season in terms of our interpretation and performance quality but the execution of the levels were not up to par. We're not worried about our position and feel very confident with our free dance for (Friday)."

Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Toronto are fourth (63.45), followed by Alexandra Paul of Midhurst, Ont., and Mitchell Islam of Barrie, Ont., in fifth (61.34).

Olympic bronze medallist Denis Ten took a commanding lead after the men's short program. The Kazakh skater scored 97.61 points, beating his former personal best of 92.51. Ten, 21, landed a quad toe loop and a triple Lutz-triple toe loop combination as he skated to "Caruso" by Lucio Dalla.

Japanese 17-year-old Shoma Uno was second with 88.90 points, completing a quad toe loop and a triple flip-triple toe loop combination in his debut at a senior international championship.

China's Yan Han was third with a score of 87.34, despite a stumble on a quad toe loop.

Jeremy Ten of Vancouver is eighth, Liam Firus of North Vancouver, B.C., 11th and Nam Nguyen of Toronto is 14th.

The men's free skate is Saturday.