Home Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong sparkled at their first public showdown after coming back from retirement, sitting third in the pairs short program at the International Skating Union (ISU) Grand Prix Cup of China in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on Friday.

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

"We had no more than a month to get together and prepare for the new program," Sui confessed after her fall during their opening triple toe loop 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 with 72.45 points to lead all the way until the final two pairs came to the rink, thanks to their presentation score of 8.57.

"We are happy with our performance, however," Sui said. "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 claimed a season best of 94.13 points 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.

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 respectively.

Returning to last season's short program with "Promise", reigning world champion Alysa Liu of the United States 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.

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 fell to second place by just 0.60 points. Liu's compatriot, defending champion Amber Glenn, came in 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 U.S. led the ice dancing rhythm dance with 84.44 points, beating compatriots Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik to second place by four points.

Three home pairs were temporarily the bottom three out of 10 teams, with comeback Olympians Wang Shiyue and Liu Xinyu in 8th with 62.68 followed by Ren Junfei & Xing Jianing, and Xiao Zixi & He Linghao.