An ice warm-up, but work still to be done

A podium finish on home ice has helped rebuild the confidence of returning figure skating pair Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, with the reigning Olympic champions racing against time and conditioning issues to shape up for Milano-Cortina 2026.

Three years and eight months after their last official competition, Sui and Han have proved that they remain a force to be reckoned with, silencing any lingering doubts about their surprising comeback by claiming a bronze medal on Saturday at the Cup of China to back up their bid for a third Olympic appearance in Italy.

To finish on the podium in their first official competition since Beijing 2022, and doing it on home ice in the 2025-26 ISU Grand Prix series has exceeded the pair's own expectations, given that they have only been practicing together for three months.

"To be honest, we'd only completed this routine three times in rehearsal before this event, and this was just our fourth completion. But we feel like we've done it better each time," Han said of his free skate with Sui, which earned them 130.47 points to help eventually secure third place with a total 202.92 points on Saturday.

After skating with Sui to win China's second Olympic gold medal in pairs at Beijing 2022, Han switched to a role off the ice, becoming a technical delegate with the International Skating Union, while Sui enjoyed life on campus, studying choreography at Beijing Dance Academy and completing her post-graduate degree at Beijing Sport University.

With the country's figure skating program struggling, unable to nurture mature enough youngsters entering the new Olympic cycle, the 33-year-old Han and 30-year-old Sui made a bold decision to stage a comeback, citing a sense of responsibility to bolster the nation's medal hopes in Milan.

A good start was not enough, though, as they summed up their performance in Chongqing as a rusty trial that apparently needs more polishing and refinement.

"Of course, we are far from perfect yet, as we still have a lot of catching up to do to reach our peak form. This bronze set the tone for our return, though, helping us understand where we still need to improve, and giving us more confidence to pull it off," said Han, who only decided to return to competition in June, half a year after Sui had already returned to training.

"We're on a really tight timetable, we need to improve the quality and details of our routines, and our physical conditioning for sure," Han added.

Skating to music from Chinese dance drama A Tapestry of a Legendary Land in Saturday's free skate, Sui and Han made up for their conditioning issues and execution flaws, exposed by downgraded jumps and few shaky landings by Han, with their artistic expression, a particular strength of the duo that has helped them collect five world championships medals, including two gold, since 2015.

Containing their emotions while keeping up with the pace of music seems to be another challenge for the pair, Sui noted.

"We are too excited. It was hard to keep our emotions in check today, after returning from a long hiatus. We got carried away by it a little bit, so much so, that we didn't control the pace of the performance quite so well," said Sui, who helped Canadian choreographer Lori Nichol with the design of the pair's routines.

"We really have to work harder in our physical training, as we felt we were running out of strength in the closing stage of our performance.

"We also have room to improve in storytelling and character development to go more smoothly with the music," said Sui.

Georgia's reigning world junior champion pair Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava took gold with 217.24 points, with Italian pair Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii in second with 209.88.

China's young pair Zhang Jiaxuan and Huang Yihang, last year's national champions, totaled 195.41 to step one place up from fifth in the short program to just miss out on a podium finish in their first senior Grand Prix.

According to the Chinese Figure Skating Association's Olympic qualifying rules, only the best-performing skater, or pair, ranked by their accumulated scores from the Chongqing Grand Prix and the national championships in December, will represent the country at the Milano-Cortina Games.

Outranked by the veteran pair in Chongqing, the younger combo of Zhang and Huang remain upbeat, citing the internal competition as a helpful push for them to mature.

"We have a lot to learn from them, and we are keen to get better at the next event," said Zhang, who capped off her Grand Prix debut with Huang with the duo's personal best of 126.45 points in free skate.

In men's singles, home favorite Jin Boyang, who represented China at both the PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, made errors in both his quad toe and triple Axel jumps, but managed to finish at fifth after Saturday's free skate, trailing the eventual champion Shun Sato of Japan by 45 points.