Freestyle skiing is known as a wonderful "aerial dance", and the athletes show gorgeous skills and skillful techniques on different venues, which is very exciting and very enjoyable. The only snow sports gold medal won by the Chinese sports delegation at the Winter Olympics came from freestyle skiing aerial skills. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, freestyle skiing also shouldered the heavy responsibility of striving for good results for the Chinese delegation, and looked forward to achieving new breakthroughs in many small events.
Competition: 13 gold medals 3 new sub-events
There are 13 small freestyle ski events at the Beijing Winter Olympics, including aerial skills, snow skills, obstacle chases, slope obstacle course skills, U-shaped track skills, and big jumping platforms. Among them, the freestyle ski men's big jump, the women's big jump and the aerial skill mixed team added a new sub-event for the Beijing Winter Olympics. In addition to the big jumping competition in the Shougang Ski Jump in Beijing, the rest of the small events were held in the Genting Ski Park in Zhangjiakou Division, resulting in a total of 13 gold medals.
According to the 12th edition of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games Competition Schedule, which was released recently, the freestyle ski event has a total of 14 competition days, starting from the day before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The Snow Skills Men's and Women's Qualifiers will take the lead at Genting Ski Park on February 3. On February 5, the first gold medal in the freestyle skiing event at the Beijing Winter Olympics will be produced – men's snow skills.
On February 7, the freestyle ski jump qualifier will be held on the Beijing Shougang Ski Jump, and the 8th is the women's big jump final. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, Chinese female general Gu Ailing will first show her style on the big jumping platform. On the evening of February 10, Genting Ski Park will host the highly anticipated Aerial Skills Mixed Team Final. In the new project, whether the Chinese team can achieve new breakthroughs is worth looking forward to. On February 14, the freestyle ski event will produce two gold medals, the first of which is the women's freestyle ski slope obstacle course in the morning, which is gu Ailing's second event. At 7 o'clock that night, it was the women's aerial skills final, and It was expected that Xu Mengtao would lead the performance of the Chinese female players.
On the evening of February 16, the men's aerial skills final will be ushered in, and new and old players such as Jia Zongyang, Qi Guangpu and Sun Jiaxu will compete with Russia's Maxim and others to fully impact the good results. On February 17, there will be a U-shaped track skills qualification tournament, the women's event, and the four Chinese girls led by Gu Ailing will compete. On February 18, the women's U-shaped venue skills final will be held, and Gu Ailing, who has a 100% participation rate in this world cup this season, can achieve a new breakthrough for the Chinese delegation in this project is the biggest highlight.
On February 19, men's U-shaped track skills were the finale of freestyle skiing at the Beijing Winter Olympics. The United States and Canada have strong strength in this project.
Development pattern: each has its own characteristics The competition pattern is more open
Each small event contained in freestyle skiing has its own characteristics, and the skills and techniques used by athletes are also very different, so the teams with competitive strength in different small events are different, and the competitive landscape is more open. Australia, Canada and the United States have shown strong overall strength in the snow skills event, and have all won 4 men and 4 women's full Winter Olympics seats. Two Pyeongchang Winter Olympic champions, Mikal Kingsbury of Canada and Perrin Ravan of France, have also maintained excellent form in the Beijing Winter Olympic cycle, occupying the top of the men's and women's Winter Olympics standings respectively.
Chinese freestyle skiing slalom chasers in the competition
The obstacle course, a race-by-obstacle course, is a race-sharing event that lasts until the last moment before the finish sprint. In this season's World Cup standings, on the men's side, France's Battisan Midor and Terrence Chiknawori are in the top two, and they are very competitive with the Project Champion of the Pingchang Winter Olympics, Canada's Brady Leman and Reese Holden. On the women's side, Pyeongchang Winter Olympic gold medalist Fanny Smith of Switzerland and Sandra Naslund of Sweden remained in excellent form during the Beijing Winter Olympic cycle.
Aerial skills have long been the dominant sport of the mainland, but the competition is very accidental. In the Beijing Winter Olympics cycle, the competition for aerial skills in women's areas is more intense, and Chinese players such as Xu Mengtao and Kong Fanyu still have the ability to stand on the podium, but Australians, Ukraine and other players have strength. On the men's side, Maxim has won all four World Cup matches this season, and is outstanding in terms of the stability of the action and the quality of completion, which is the biggest favorite to win the Winter Olympics.
The Aerial Skills team won the first and second places in the World Cup sub-stations
Many of the small events in freestyle skiing are emerging projects and are the "young faces" of recent Winter Olympics. U-shaped venue skills became a winter Olympic event at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, and the United States, Canada and other countries have a leading level in this project. However, in the Beijing Winter Olympics cycle, China has made progress in the women's event, getting a full quota of 4 tickets, and Gu Ailing has the strength to rush gold. Also in 2014, slope obstacle courses became a Winter Olympics event, with runners flying, jumping and tumbling on a series of fixed props, testing the comprehensive ability of skiing skills. Players from the United States and Canada also have a high level of competition in this event. In addition, two "genius girls" - China's Gu Ailing and Estonia's Hildaru will compete fiercely for this project.
The Beijing Winter Olympics is the "Winter Olympic Debut" of the freestyle ski jump. Athletes in the big jump event will also participate in the slope obstacle course. Gu Ailing, Hildaru and France's Tess Ludder are among the top players in the event, and the austrian talented Teenager Mattei Swanser in the men's side has also been very prominent this season.
The State of China: Multiple Projects Fill in the Gaps
The sport of aerial skills has been in China since the 1980s, setting a number of "firsts" in Snow Sports in China. Xu won the runner-up at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, achieving a breakthrough of "zero" medals in snow sports. Han Xiaopeng won the first gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Turin in 2006 for the Chinese snow event. In the history of the Winter Olympic Games, aerial skills have left an excellent record of 1 gold, 6 silver and 4 bronze.
At the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Jia Zongyang, Zhang Xin and Kong Fanyu won 2 silver and 1 bronze. In the Beijing Winter Olympic cycle, Zhang Xin, Liu Zhongqing and other players retired, and young people such as Shao Qi, Sun Jiaxu, and Yang Longxiao emerged. Beijing Winter Olympics China won 4 men, 3 women and 7 Winter Olympic tickets in the event. The 31-year-old Xu Mengtao has reached the podium in 4 of the 6 World Cup matches this season, won two World Cup championships, and is about to play the Winter Olympic Games for four games: "When standing on the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, I must work hard from accumulation, ability, and competitive performance to show the best Xu Mengtao. On the men's side, Jia Zongyang and Qi Guangpu are also about to participate in the Winter Olympics for the fourth time, and they will encounter strong opponent Maxim at the Beijing Winter Olympics. However, compared with individual projects, the three veterans are more focused on the addition of new mixed group projects, and "the honor of the team is above all else" is their consensus.
In addition to aerial skills, many small sports of freestyle skiing have been blank in the mainland for a long time, until the successful bidding for the Beijing Winter Olympics, and most of the athletes are cross-border cross-sports.
U-shaped field skills began to form a national training team in 2016, but they have improved rapidly. Especially in the women's side, they now have the strength to compete against traditional strong teams on the international stage. The Beijing Winter Olympics will include Gu Ailing and other 4 female players to compete. "In the past, there were less than 10 female athletes who could complete 1080° difficult movements in the competition, but now there are 3 athletes in our Chinese team who can complete." This is a sentence that Iran Chase, coach of the national training team of the freestyle ski U-shaped field, said.
Gu Ailing
In other events, as of now, China has won two tickets for the Winter Olympics for 1 male and 1 female in snow skills, one ticket for women's events in the obstacle chase, and two tickets for women's events in the big jump and slope obstacle courses. Among them, obstacle chase, big jump platform and slope obstacle skills are the first time that China has qualified for the Winter Olympics. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, China's Gu Ailing competed in the three minor events of U-shaped track skills, slope obstacle course skills and big jumping in freestyle skiing. Since his debut in the World Cup season on December 5, 2021, in 37 days, Gu Ailing has won 6 gold, 2 silver and 1 tong in three small events of freestyle skiing, showing good condition and all-round ability before the Beijing Winter Olympics.
In the face of the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing, who is "fighting on the three fronts", will encounter more challenges. "I don't have pressure, I love skiing, and signing up for three events at the Winter Olympics is equivalent to having three skiing opportunities. I am very much looking forward to participating in the Winter Olympics. Gu Ailing said.