Wearing special skates for his injured ankle, Zhao tried tripletoe jumps plus double axel three times during his first formal practice at Turin's Olympic figure skating stadium on Wednesday, but only completed it once.

"It's fair to say that Zhao has recovered fairly well. He is capable of competing now even though he is still not as good as he was," said Ren Hongguo, a senior official with China's figure skating team.

The winners of the 2002 and 2003 world titles have not competed since the 32-year-old Zhao snapped his Achilles Tendon last August, ending a difficult year that saw the pair pull out of the World Champinonships in Moscow at the last minute due to Zhao's foot injury.

Zhao then underwent surgery and months of rehabilitation, before dispelling fears of missing the Turin Games by returning to training in November.

Zhao's injury forced the pair to lower their technical level, changing a triple toe jump plus triple toe jump to a triple toe jump plus double axel.

"As an Olympic veteran, Zhao is yearning for a good performance in Turin," Ren said."It's a miracle that Zhao can compete in Turin since many people thought he couldn't. If he can perform to his best here, he will create a bigger surprising miracle."

Along with Shen and Zhao, two other Chinese pairs of Pang Qing and Tong Jian, Zhang Hao and Zhang Dan, also set to challenge the Russian dominance of the Olympic gold.

Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao, ranked third on the world standings, executed two perfect quadruple throw salchow in practice on Wednesday.

However, whether the pair would make the execution in their free program, which has never been successfully completed by pair skaters worldwide at the international competitions, will depend on their places after the short program competition, Ren said.

"They executed the difficult move at a pretty good successful rate and they are also in a high spirit to fight for the gold. Butquadruple throw salchow is not the only move that leads to gold," Ren said.

Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao, both aged 20, have reaped great achievements in recent years after being listed 11th at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. They won two stops of the 2005 World Grand Prix in Canada and Japan and listed second at the Grand Prix Final.

"Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao are the best in the world in terms of technical difficulties. Their placing in Turin depends on the performance of themselves as well as their rivals a few days later," Ren said.

The Winter Olympics' pairs skating arena has long been dominated by the Russians, who have been winning the pairs golds at every Games from Innsbruck in 1964 to the Salt Lake City in 2002.

The only nation to intrude on their monopoly was Canada, whose pair Jamie Sale and David Pelletier finished second in Salt Lake City but were awarded duplicate gold medals after a judging scandal. Enditem