Chinese duo Pang Qing and Tong Jian clinched the second spot in pair skating at the ongoing NHK Trophy in Nagoya, Japan, on Friday.

Their skating to the melody of "The Butterfly Lovers", a well-known piece of classical Chinese music, featured a triple twist, a side-by-side double Axel-triple toeloop sequence and a big throw triple Salchow, but the pair seemed to tire in the second half of their performance and made some errors.

Pang and Tong received 114.80 points for their routine, but with an overall event score of 179.62 the duo finished runners-up.

Russians Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov took the center stage, winning the gold with 187.56 points, while Zagorska and Siudek from Poland earned the bronze medal.

(CRI November 6, 2004)