|
Pang and Tong aim at figure skating golds in Turin Olympics
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-11-14 09:54
BEIJING, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Emerging from the shadow of their better-known
compatriots, figure skating pair Pang Qing and Tong Jian had their chance this
month to show the Russians that China would be a threat on the ice at the Turin
Olympics.
Pang Qing(upper)
and Tong Jian (down) | It did not go as planned.
Pang and Tong unveiled their Olympic-year programme at the Cup of China
earlier this month, in the absence of twice world champions Shen Xue and Zhao
Hongbo.
With Turin just months away, they had hoped to make a big impression.
"We always used to play supporting roles, but here (at the Cup of China) we
were suddenly put in the lead," Tong said.
The pair, however, struggled on their jumps, including a triple Salchow they
had been developing. First place went to world silver medallists Maria Petrova
and Alexei Tikhonov of Russia and the Chinese had to be content with silver.
Pang, 25, said their new long programme, set to Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The
Music of the Night" from the "Phantom of the Opera", had the technical
difficulty to match their Russian rivals.
"At the start of the season, we wanted to give the audience and the judges a
feeling of 'boom'; to show them that we not only have an impressive new
programme, but we also have made a lot of technical improvements," said Tong,
26.
"Now everyone's seen the new programme but we made mistakes with our
technical content and did not show a big change. That's a real shame."
|
