Chinese favorites Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo face a long wait to see how they measure up against their main Olympic rivals after being drawn to skate first in the pairs short programme.

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The husband-and-wife team, who came out of retirement last year to in search of the Olympic figure skating title, will take to the ice more than three hours earlier than German world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, who will be the last of the 20 couples to perform on Sunday.

The room full of skaters and coaches clapped and laughed when the Chinese pair found they had drawn the number one ball out of the bag on Friday.

"I think it's OK for them," team leader Dong Yang said. "The most important thing is their performance not the starting order."

Three-time world champions Shen and Zhao are used to waiting, having competed at three previous Winter Games without winning gold. They have two bronze medals from 2002 and 2006.