Russia's Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin retained their pairs title in dramatic fashion at the world figure skating championships Wednesday after former winners Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao withdraw at the last minute.

Local favorites Totmianina and Marinin skated an inspired free program to the music from Rimski-Korsakov's ballet Sheherazade to win by more than 10 points over fellow Russians Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov.

The Chinese duo, world champions in 2002 and 2003, pulled out of the competition just before their final skate as Zhao was suffering from a foot injury.

In their absence, Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang -- China's number two -- took the bronze with their compatriots , Qing Pang and Jian Tong, finishing fourth.

There was also a big controversy earlier when Hao collided with Totmianina during Wednesday's morning practice.

"I was standing still with my back to the Chinese guy when suddenly I was thrown 180 degrees in the air and fell to the ice," said Totmianina, who was sidelined for almost three months earlier this season after falling head first during a lift in the Skate America competition.

With the fall last October leaving the Russian unconscious for several minutes, Wednesday's incident left Totmianina shaken.

"I don't know if it (collision) was premeditated, I hope not, but I must say when I hit the ice it was very painful. It was not a pleasant feeling."

Hao said the collision was an accident.

"It was unintentional, just an accident and I already sent my apologies to Tatiana," the 20-year-old said through the interpreter.

Petrova and Tikhonov, world champions in 2000, were delighted with their performance.

"We had some technical mistakes in our free program but over-all, I think, it was our best skate ever," said 34-year-old Tikhonov. "As with wine, we're getting better year after year."

The Russian and Chinese pairs claimed the top five places in a competition that featured errors from all of the main contenders.

"Russia and China are two superpowers in pairs figure skating," Tikhonov said.

"They've been so dominant over the rest of the field in the last few years and we're just happy that this year Russia came out on top."

The home country can add to their gold medal haul on Thursday when men's champion Yevgeny Plushenko will be aiming to overcome the challenge of early pace setters Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland and Frenchman Brian Joubert.