With all the split ups by the US pairs, I became intersted in the Chinese partnerships and read up on their biginnings. I will try to tell their stories up to the turning points after the inititial struggles.
Zhao was a successful pair skater who lost his partner to injury. His coach Yao started looking for a new partner for him among many enthusiastic girls who auditioned. He saw what he liked in a young unknown unnoticed ugly duckling, Shen, and picked her after interviewing her parents. Part of his decision was because he like her ordinary background. She loved skating from the moment she stepped on the ice as a weak little girl and had to go skating every day. When her mother noticed her wounded foot one day and refused to take her, she cried and insisted until the parents gave in, only to discover upon returning home that her sock had stuck on to her bloodied foot so badly they had a hard time removing it. The partnership wasn't working out at the beginning because the 14 year old Shen just could not keep up with Zhao the 20 year old advanced skater. With a lot at stakes, even the patient stoic Yao began to worry, since there was much opposition to his pick of Shen. One day, uncharacteristically, he yelled at Hongbo, "Why should Xue be adjusting to you and try to keep up with you? Why can't you slow down to stay with her?!" It struck him then to change up the training and started demanding Zhao to adjust to Shen, making it wholely Zhao's responsibility to match her. Well, things started turning around until she caught up with him and they skated as a real pair.
The difficult journey continued for Shen and Zhao. But I will tell the story of Pang and Tong's beginning.
In 1991, Pang was a single skater and Tong a single turned ice dancer whose partner had just quit. They were both quite stuck without much future to look forward to. Yao Bin was beginning his Pairs program and got them together. Tong liked Pang right away and picked her without a second thought though he had two girls to choose from. It was rare for an ice dancer to change to pairs but he decided to give it a try. However, with limited resources, only Shen/Zhao was selected into the national team and Pang and Tong were left in Harbin wihout a coach for five years! They didn't even have the basic Pairs skills. They trained by themselves, sometimes with the Ladies, sometimes with the Men, and even with the Ice Dancers, trying to get a little guidance from whichever coach with a little time left. The two of them, at 14 and 15, fought constantly. For competition, they copied others' recorded programs, being able to do only 4 of the 8 required elements. The next time they met their coach was in 1994 at the Nationals. Yao took time out during the competition to teach them a double jump.
Upon their return, the two youngsters kept fighting until a blow up in 1995 when they refused to talk to each other for a whole week. Once they messed up their SP so badly that they were too embarassed to perform the LP.
With the success of Shen/Zhao and with Yao's advocating, eventually they got sent to Beijing and finally received proper coaching. Being more grown up and having made the decision to continue, they were determined to succeed. But soon their spirits and pride were crushed by their dismal result at a competition in Beijing. They started talking about their future on a quiet and dimly lit street. It was a heart to heart talk with just the two of them, recalling the difficult years they had gone through, until they broke down crying uncontrollably. They finally decided they never had a chance before and they should give themselve the chance to prove themselves. They now regard the 1997 big cry as the lowest pont of their lives and career and nothing could beat them after that.
Things didn't turn around fast for them. They used Shen/Zhao's left over programs, never getting their own choreography since they didn't show good results. They kept a program for 4 years yet incredibly was once told by a judge that their "new" program was much better than previous year's. It wasn't until 1999 that they went to the US with Yao to have a program choreographed for them. Finally having a program of their own, they debuted in the Seniors GP and beat all who had beat them in the Juniors. Their confidence soared.
: My mistake. So rushed with the description that, well you know, how they all look alike. 
