China's Pang Qing and Tong Jian have wrapped up a silver medal in pairs skating at the Cup of China Figure Skating Grand Prix in Beijing.

The Chinese pair scored a total of 176.46 points after free skating, some nine points less than Russia's world champions Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov.

The Russian world silver medallists collected 122.52 points for their free skating and totaled 185.38 points to claim the victory.

"It's very hard for us to skate tonight since Maria hardly sleep last night," said Tikhonov. "But we did a clean program with only one mistake and we're very happy about the results."

China's Pang/ Tong, the 2004 world bronze medallists, expressed their dissatisfaction after the competition.

"We are satisfied with the first part of the program but we made couple of mistakes later," said Tong. "Since it is our first international competition this season and without Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, we are a little bit nervous. We hope to do better and better in the left competitions."

"The performance we showed today couldn't display our real level and we're eyeing for a medal in the Winter Olympic Games next year," said Tong.

Pang/Tong ranked ninth at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics.

Early on Friday, another Russia Andrei Griazev won the first position of the men's single dance.

The 20-year-old scored a total of 71 points to lead the 12 skaters, followed by Chinese Li Chengjiang with 70.25.

The third place went to the 2005 world champion Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland.

In ice dance, reigning world champions Tatiana Navka/Roman Kostomarov of Russia maintained their lead after the original dance with 95.33 points, 5.29 more than second place Italian Federica Faiella/Massimo Scali.

Megan Wing/Aaron Lowe of Canada, who ranked third after the compulsory dance on Thursday, climbed to third place with 82.19 points.

Free skating of both men's single and ice dance will be held on Saturday. The women's single title will also be decided on Saturday.

(Xinhua News Agency and CRI November 5, 2005)