Editor's note: On February 4, the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing will be unveiled, and Chinese Olympic athletes are currently stepping up their preparations for the excitement of the flame.
In Shanghai, which lacks ice and snow, the general public's understanding of the olympic sports of the Winter Olympic Games is certainly not as "handy" as that of the Summer Olympic Games. Jiefang Daily Shangguan News "Sports +" specially launched the "Beijing Winter Olympics Primer" science popularization column, taking everyone closer to the 7 major events, 15 sub-events and 109 sub-events of the Winter Olympic Games, and know the doorway of ice and snow sports.
On January 16th, the last stop of the Freestyle Ski Slope Obstacle Course World Cup ended in Fantawild, France, and the Beijing Winter Olympics Slope Obstacle Course and The Big Jump Event Winter Olympic Points Competition came to an end. The Chinese team has won a total of 2 women's qualifications in these two events and will send athletes to the Winter Olympics for the first time. Freestyle skiing is a traditional strength of Chinese snow sports, and many of them are rising strongly.
Freestyle skiing: originated in the United States, to the world
There are 6 sub-events under the ski major, namely cross-country skiing, alpine skiing, ski jumping, Nordic biathlon and freestyle skiing and snowboarding from the United States. The four skiing sub-events originating in Europe are the old skiing events, most of which entered the Winter Olympics in the 1920s. Freestyle skiing is relatively "young", of which aerial skills have always been the strength of China's snow sports.
The 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, coincided with a major expansion of the event, and the men's and women's snow skills of freestyle skiing were first included. At the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, men's and women's aerial skills became an official competition. For the first time, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver added two sub-events for men's and women's steeplechase. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, U-shaped field skills and slope obstacle skills became official competitions. In addition to the above 10 sub-events, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will add 3 new sub-events, namely the men's and women's big jump and the aerial skills mixed team competition. Thus, there are a total of 13 freestyle ski events.
Freestyle skiing is a snow competition that uses equipment such as skis and poles to demonstrate skills or speed skating on jumping platforms, U-shaped tracks, and obstacle slopes with drops. Skiing is the most obvious feature that distinguishes freestyle skiing from snowboarding. Among the 13 sub-events, except for the men's and women's big jumping platform competitions in the Shougang Ski Jump in Beijing, the rest of the small events were held in the Genting Ski Park in Zhangjiakou Division.
Mixed groups: new projects, gender equality
The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics has added 7 new events, of which 4 are team events, and the freestyle skiing aerial skills mixed team is one of them. This team competition is a team of men's and women's combined strengths. The contest is contested by 3 people and must be of the opposite sex. According to the regulations, women compete first, and then 3 people score together to rank. Most teams will choose 2 men and 1 woman, and male athletes can achieve relatively higher difficulty in sliding and more dominant in scoring.
The mixed team event of aerial skills entered the Olympic Games, in line with the trend of gender equality. This project is a co-ed project, which is in line with the gender equality advocated by the International Olympic Committee. From the athlete's point of view, in addition to participating in individual competitions, they also have the opportunity to participate in mixed team competitions, which has one more opportunity to show their strength. From the perspective of the audience, the events of male and female partners are relatively novel, the contingency has increased, and the intensity and ornamentation of the competition have also improved.
Mixed group projects were launched earlier in China. On the one hand, it is because the level of China's aerial skills has always remained in the world's first camp; on the other hand, China's Winter Games and national championships have set up this small event; and the air skills World Cup in the mainland has also set this small event. Therefore, the aerial skill mixed team event is a strong gold medal for the Chinese delegation, which has won the World Cup sub-station championship many times this season.
Chinese history: there have been regrets, eager to break through
Among the small events of freestyle skiing, the Chinese team has the strongest strength in the aerial skills project. In 1989, the mainland officially launched the freestyle skiing aerial skills project; in 1994, the mainland sent 2 female athletes to participate in the Lillehammer Winter Olympics, winning the 17th and 18th places; since the Winter Olympics, mainland athletes have never been absent from the aerial skills project.
In 1998, Xu won the silver medal in the women's event and achieved a breakthrough in the snow medal of the Chinese Winter Olympics delegation. Since then, a number of outstanding aerial skill athletes have emerged in China. Among them, Li Nina is one of the female athlete representatives. From the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, she participated in the aerial skills project of four consecutive Winter Olympics. Nina Li played steadily, finishing second in two consecutive winter games in 2006 and 2010, and her worst result in four Olympic Games was also fifth.
The outstanding representative of the male athletes is Han Xiaopeng, who won his first national championship in 2000. Han Xiaopeng's first participation in the Winter Olympics was at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Han Xiaopeng and teammates Qiu Sen and Ou Xiaotao became the first athletes in China to participate in the men's aerial skills of the Winter Olympics. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Han Xiaopeng was more experienced and eventually won the championship with a total score of 250.77 points in the two jumps. Han Xiaopeng's gold medal is precious, it is the first snow sports gold medal at the Chinese Winter Olympics and the first Winter Olympic gold medal for Chinese male athletes.
At the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Chinese team was very competitive in the freestyle skiing sub-event. In addition to the aerial skills of the four dynasties such as Xu Mengtao and Jia Zongyang, other relatively weak small items before have also begun to have the strength to take cards and even rush gold.
Gu Ailing, born in 2003, is currently one of the most well-known Chinese Winter Olympic athletes. Gu Ailing's father is an American, and her mother, Gu Yan, is a native of Beijing and a former ski instructor. Gu Ailing has an advantage in innate talent and acquired training, and her strengths are freestyle ski slope obstacle skills, big jumping and U-shaped track skills. Last year, Gu Ailing suffered an injury and did not start the new season until the end of the year, and won four gold medals in less than a month in the big jump platform and U-shaped venue skills World Cup. Entering 2022, Gu Ailing still maintains its strength, receiving the highest podium at Calgary Station and Mammoth Hill Station respectively. This time in Beijing, Gu Ailing's biggest competitor is Hildaru, from Estonia.
The Winter Olympics freestyle skiing event has a total of 14 competition days, starting from the day before the opening ceremony. The Snow Skills Men's and Women's Qualifying Tournaments will take the lead at Genting Ski Park on February 3, and the Men's Snow Skills Competition on February 5 will be the first gold medal to be produced in the freestyle skiing sub-event. In this home battle, the Chinese team is fully prepared for the battle, and it is likely to achieve the following two goals after a gap of 16 years: to win the first gold in the history of the Chinese Women's Freestyle Skiing Winter Olympics, and to win the gold medal in freestyle skiing at the Winter Olympics again.
(The author Tu Yuan is a 2020 master's student of Shanghai University of Sport, and Chen Guoqiang, associate professor of Shanghai University of Sport, also contributed to this article)
Column Editor-in-Chief: Chen Hua Text Editor: Chen Hua Title Image Source: Xinhua News Agency
文内插图：新华社 Source: Author: Tu Yuan