China's Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao were controversial winners of silver in the pairs figure skating behind Russians Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin at the Winter Olympics.
A five-minute injury break raised eyebrows but cost the Chinese relatively little last night under an already revamped scoring system.
It was after the 2002 Games that the points system was changed - yet after Zhang Dan had crashed to the ice during an extravagant throw and then collided with the rinkside boards, the new rules were put to the test again.
The unsuccessful quadruple Salchow just after the start of the performance resulted in a knee injury for Zhang Dan, who struggled to her feet and eventually recovered.
After returning to finish the programme, the Chinese scored a combined total of 189.73 and received a standing ovation from the crowd at the Palavela rink.
Zhang Hao confirmed that, even during the delay, he and his partner remained determined to skate on.
"We didn't say any words of giving up. We said we could go on," he said.
Totmianina and Marinin nonetheless won gold with a score of 204.48 after a stunning long programme.
American snowboarders Hannah Teter and Gretchen Bleiler finished 1-2 in the women's halfpipe competition.
Teter earned a score of 44.6 for her first of two runs, which would have been good enough for gold, but she topped that with a 46.4 on her second attempt.
Bleiler was second after the first run with a 41.5 and remained there after receiving a 43.4 on her second.
Kjersti Buaas of Norway prevented a United States sweep by claiming bronze with a score of 42.0 on her second run edging out American Kelly Clark.
In the men's halfpipe event, Americans Shaun White and Danny Kass earned gold and silver, respectively.
Another American, Joey Cheek, also struck gold in the men's 500metre speedskating, clocking a two-run time of 1 minute 9.76seconds to beat Russian Dmitry Dorofeyev by an impressive 0.65 seconds.
Earlier, Russian biathletes Svetlana Ishmouratova and Olga Pyleva finished 1-2 in the women's 15-kilometre individual, with German Martina Glagow claiming bronze.
