Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong made a powerful return from retirement, rating third within the pairs brief program because the ISU Grand Prix Cup of China opened Friday. Japan’s Shun Sato topped the boys’s brief with 94.13, whereas U.S. star Alysa Liu led the ladies’s occasion with 74.61.
CHONGQING, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) — Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong sparkled at their first public showdown after getting back from retirement, sitting third in pairs brief program because the ISU Grand Prix Cup of China kicked off right here on Friday.
Georgia’s reigning world junior champions Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava refreshed their private finest in simply two weeks to take the lead with 77.77 factors, whereas Italian pair Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii, this yr’s European runners-up, scored 73.41 to beat Sui and Han narrowly to the third place.
“We have no more than a month to get together and prepare for the new program,” Sui confessed after her fall throughout their opening triple toeloop led to a one-point deduction.
Skating to the Habanera aria from Bizet’s Carmen, the 2022 Winter Olympic gold medalists, who don’t have any rating factors underneath their names, got here out first and scored 72.45 factors to steer all the best way till the ultimate two pairs hit the rink, due to a presentation rating of 8.57.
“We are happy with our performance, however,” 30-year-old Sui continued. “Next we’ll focus on tuning up to competition rhythm and learning to keep a cool head.”
“Back to the rink after three years away, we love figure skating and are both honored to represent the country,” Han added.
In the boys’s brief program, Shun Sato of Japan got here out the runaway chief with a season’s finest rating of 94.13 after touchdown solidly on his opening quad Lutz, quad toeloop-triple toe mixture and triple Axel.
Italy’s Daniel Grassl and Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan adopted with 90.42 and 88.33 respectively, whereas Japan’s Sota Yamamoto was fourth on 87.57.
Local favourite Jin Boyang stayed fifth on 86.62, regardless of popping out early and placing on just one quad bounce. His compatriots Peng Zhiming and Dai Dawei have been tenth and twelfth.
Returning to final season’s brief program with Promise, reigning world champion Alysa Liu nailed a triple flip, a double Axel, a triple Lutz-triple Loop mixture, and all level-4 spins and steps to high the ladies’s rankings with 74.61.
“I felt a lot in this program. It is really meaningful to me,” stated the 20-year-old American.
Japan’s Rinka Watanabe launched a profitable triple Axel within the opening of her routine and claimed the evening’s highest executed parts rating of 41.56, however was edged into second place by simply 0.60 factors. Liu’s compatriot, defending champion Amber Glenn, completed third on 73.04.
Zhu Yi, China’s sole consultant within the ladies’s occasion at Beijing 2022, was eighth on 63.39, whereas teenager Zhang Ruiyang, who seized an Olympic berth for China in final month’s qualifiers in Beijing, was on tenth place with 61.71.
Three-time world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States led the ice dancing run after Friday’s rhythm dance with 84.44 factors, beating compatriots Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik to second place by 4 factors.
China’s three pairs have been briefly the underside three out of ten groups, with comeback Olympians Wang Shiyue and Liu Xinyu on eighth with 62.68 and Ren Junfei/Xing Jianing and Xiao Zixi/He Linghao three and 4 factors additional again, respectively.
The Cup of China, the second cease of the Olympic season’s ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating sequence, proceed with males’s, ladies’s and pairs free skate and the ice dancing free dance on Saturday.