Summary The veteran pair posted the best score in the free skate to secure a total of 193.86 points.
PARIS (AP) - Olympic runners-up Pang Qing and Tong Jian won the pairs at the Trophee Bompard for the first time on Saturday.
The veteran pair posted the best score in the free skate to secure a total of 193.86 points. World bronze medalists Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada finished second with 190.89.
"I was very excited because we got the gold medal," the 34-year-old Tong said. "This gold is very important for us because it s our final season."
By finishing second, the Canadians secured their place in the Grand Prix Final, which features the top six skaters in each category.
"That was a difficult skate for Megan and I. We knew we couldn t win the gold but another goal of ours was to reach the Grand Prix final," Radford said. "We fought for our lives out there to make it happen. We re incredibly proud of ourselves to make the final with the pressure we put on ourselves today."
Duhamel hopes to finally win in Paris one day.
"I ve got two bronze and two silvers here and I want to win the gold, so hopefully they ll invite us back," she said.
Americans Caydee Denney and John Coughlin took the bronze medal with 184.01 after overtaking Russians Vera Bazarova and Yuri Larionov, who were third after the short program.
"We re very excited with our skate," Coughlin said. "I didn t realize how noisy it would be, it was like a soccer crowd out there."
Later, three-time world champion Patrick Chan, defending champion Ashley Wagner and ice dance Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were set to defend their overnight leads.
