"I am really excited and emotional at the moment, having put so much effort into our training and overcoming so many challenges," the 17-year-old Zhang, who started to skate with Huang at the junior level after the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, said.

"We didn't deliver quite a perfect performance today. We had some tiny little errors here and there," she said after the free skate on Saturday. "We handled the pressure well, though, at our first competition at this level."

Huang shrugged off the hype comparing them to some of the country's greats in pairs skating, insisting that they only focus on improving their routines in the buildup to Milan.

"I wouldn't say that," the 23-year-old skater responded to media compliments, referring to them as the new flag-bearers for Chinese pairs skating.

"There are so many competitive skaters in the world, as numerous as fish crossing a river. Way more skaters have been doing better than we do.

"Should we manage to represent our country in Milan, we will further improve ourselves, make our routines more competitive, and bring more spectacular performance at the Olympics," Huang said.

Although helping China secure one national entry into the pairs discipline, Zhang and Huang still have to skate at the domestic Olympic trials to compete for the sole representation in Milan against other Chinese pairs, including the reigning Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, who have recently announced their comeback from a long break since Beijing 2022.

Sui and Han won China's second Olympic gold medal in figure skating pairs at the home Games, after their legendary predecessors Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo claimed the first in the discipline at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn