As the music of Romeo and Juliet echoed throughout the ice rink, China's figure skating pair Pang Qing and Tong Jian acted out their own moving love story on the ice below.

China's Pang Qing (L) and Tong Jian compete during the pairs figure skating event at the sixth Asian Winter Games in Changchun, northeastern China's Jilin Province, February 3, 2007.

With their newly choreographed free-skating routine, Pang and Tong, the 2006 world champion pair, are expecting a glorious new season.

"We want to show something new to the spectators this time," said Tong of their new free skating routine, which was choreographed in the U.S. "Although we still use the same routine for the short program as we did last season, we changed some of the details to meet the needs of the new rules."

According to Tong, they have added some new linking footwork to some of the transitions of their new free skating routine, raising the overall difficulty level considerably.

"We need to almost turn around in every transition. Even I thought it would be impossible during the choreographing period," said Tong. "But our choreographer told us that we are capable enough to do it, and now we know that we can."

Through their passionate performances and exquisite interpretation of the music, Pang and Tong physically narrate the classic tragedy to the audience. Although the music has been used in many figure skating routines, they expect to give it their own flavor.

"We don't want to finish the routine by just completing the technical elements. We want to tell a real story," said Tong. "We want to feel the characters with our hearts and display the routine with our own characteristics."

Since they teamed up in 1993, Pang and Tong have always been considered the No. 2 pairs skaters in China, always in the shadow of multiple world champions and two-time Olympic bronze medalists Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo.

 Making quiet progress, the pair jumped into fifth place at the 2002 World Championships, only two years after their international debut.

They claimed the bronze medal at the 2004 World Championships, and just narrowly missed the podium at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, settling for fourth place.

One month later, they finally stepped atop the highest podium at the World Championships. Unfortunately they got bogged down with bouts of illness and injury in the 2006-07 season.

After Pang developed a nephritic disease, the pair was forced to miss almost the entire season. Coupled with the stitches Tong received on his forehead following a car accident, the pair was left with little time to train systematically for the Asiad and World Championships, held at the beginning of the year.

They settled for two silvers at the Asiad and 2007 World Championships, but they are expecting to regain their form and reach the top of the podium again as the season gets underway.

"Although we haven't reached our best form at present, we will try to do well with the new routine in the Grand Prix series and World Championships this season," Tong told China Daily. "The new season will be exciting. It should be a glorious season for us."

With Shen/Zhao withdrawing from the competitions after being crowned world champions for the third time in March, this may be the first season for the 28-year-olds Pang/Tong to take over the torch.

"Without Shen/Zhao, we seemed to lose the goal we are chasing," Tong said.

"But we want to show ourselves right now. It's not that they've been unbeatable. We just haven't found the right way to show our own characteristics. We hope our changes this season will sparkle the audience."

After Pang's unexpected cold spoiled the pair's season-opening competition at the 2007 Figure Skating National Championships last week, they finished runners-up to their Chinese teammates Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao. Having caught a cold on the first day of the competition, Pang struggled to finish their free skating routine, which required lots of strength.

After the competition, Tong admitted that they were not ready for those unexpected accidents. But he said that ordeal gained them valuable experience.

"We are still not that skilled at our new routine and the national competition is a good test," said Tong. "But we have learned our lesson from that. We still did our best, although we were in very bad condition."

From October 25 to 28, Pang/Tong will start this season's international competition in Reading in the US, for the first stop of the ISU Figure Skating Grand Prix.

(China Daily October 16, 2007)