Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong made a strong return from retirement, ranking third in the pairs short program as the ISU Grand Prix Cup of China opened Friday. Japan's Shun Sato topped the men's short with 94.13, while U.S. star Alysa Liu led the women's event with 74.61.

CHONGQING, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong sparkled at their first public showdown after coming back from retirement, sitting third in pairs short program as the ISU Grand Prix Cup of China kicked off here on Friday.

Georgia's reigning world junior champions Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava refreshed their personal best in just two weeks to take the lead with 77.77 points, while Italian pair Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii, this year's European runners-up, scored 73.41 to beat Sui and Han narrowly to the third place.

"We have no more than a month to get together and prepare for the new program," Sui confessed after her fall during their opening triple toeloop led to a one-point deduction.

Skating to the Habanera aria from Bizet's Carmen, the 2022 Winter Olympic gold medalists, who have no ranking points under their names, came out first and scored 72.45 points to lead all the way until the final two pairs hit the rink, thanks to a presentation score of 8.57.

"We are happy with our performance, however," 30-year-old Sui continued. "Next we'll focus on tuning up to competition rhythm and learning to keep a cool head."

"Back to the rink after three years away, we love figure skating and are both honored to represent the country," Han added.

In the men's short program, Shun Sato of Japan came out the runaway leader with a season's best score of 94.13 after landing solidly on his opening quad Lutz, quad toeloop-triple toe combination and triple Axel.

Italy's Daniel Grassl and Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan followed with 90.42 and 88.33 respectively, while Japan's Sota Yamamoto was fourth on 87.57.

Local favorite Jin Boyang stayed fifth on 86.62, despite coming out early and putting on only one quad jump. His compatriots Peng Zhiming and Dai Dawei were 10th and 12th.

Returning to last season's short program with Promise, reigning world champion Alysa Liu nailed a triple flip, a double Axel, a triple Lutz-triple Loop combination, and all level-4 spins and steps to top the women's rankings with 74.61.

"I felt a lot in this program. It is really meaningful to me," said the 20-year-old American.

Japan's Rinka Watanabe launched a successful triple Axel in the opening of her routine and claimed the night's highest executed elements score of 41.56, but was edged into second place by just 0.60 points. Liu's compatriot, defending champion Amber Glenn, finished third on 73.04.

Zhu Yi, China's sole representative in the women's event at Beijing 2022, was eighth on 63.39, while teenager Zhang Ruiyang, who seized an Olympic berth for China in last month's qualifiers in Beijing, was on 10th place with 61.71.

Three-time world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States led the ice dancing run after Friday's rhythm dance with 84.44 points, beating compatriots Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik to second place by four points.

China's three pairs were temporarily the bottom three out of ten teams, with comeback Olympians Wang Shiyue and Liu Xinyu on 8th with 62.68 and Ren Junfei/Xing Jianing and Xiao Zixi/He Linghao three and four points further back, respectively.

The Cup of China, the second stop of the Olympic season's ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series, continue with men's, women's and pairs free skate and the ice dancing free dance on Saturday.  ■