Foresight: Snowmobile sleds, "China Speed" light loading

(Beijing Winter Olympics) Preview: bobsleigh, "China Speed" light loading

BEIJING, Feb. 2 (China News Service) -- Snowmobile bobsleigh is the fastest sport in the Winter Olympics, and this "brave game" has an average speed of more than 130 kilometers per hour, known as "F1 on the snow". At the Beijing Winter Olympics, 10 gold medals will be born in the three sports of snowmobiles, steel frame snowmobiles and bobsleighs, and it is worth looking forward to who will spend them.

Compared with the traditional powers in Europe and the United States, China's bobsleigh started late and the gap is large, but with the opportunity of the Beijing Winter Olympics, China successively established a national team of bobsleighs, steel frame bobsleighs and bobsleighs in 2015, and showed its sharp edge at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, showing the world "Chinese speed".

Data map: October 6, 2021, Xidazhuangke Village, Zhangshanying Town, Yanqing District, Beijing, national bobsleigh center near Yanqing Winter Olympic Village, 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Olympic Games. Photo by Wang Zirui Photo source: CNSPHOTO

In this "doorstep" home battle, China's "double sisters" Ying Qing and Huai Mingming led 12 Chinese players to participate in the competition for 4 sub-events in the snowmobile event. In the 2021-2022 International Snowmobile and Steel Frame Snowmobile Federation Women's Snowmobile World Rankings, Ying Qing is currently ranked 11th and Huai Mingming is ranked 14th.

In terms of men's snowmobiling, Sun Kaizhi and Li Chunjian will lead their teammates to participate in the competition for the men's double snowmobile and four-person snowmobile events. "King of the Snowmobile" Germany's Francesco Friedrich won two gold medals in the men's doubles and men's quadruple events at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and the trip to Beijing is aiming to defend the title.

Compared with Germany, the United States, Canada and other snowmobile project powers, the strength of the Chinese snowmobile national team is weak, and it is more difficult to win gold or stand on the podium. However, people such as Huai Mingming, Ying Qing, Sun Kaizhi and Li Chunjian may hope to take advantage of the home field and play at a higher level to refresh the results.

In the steel frame snowmobile project, the Chinese team sent 2 male athletes Yan Wengang and Yin Zheng and 2 female athletes Li Yuxi and Zhao Dan to participate in the competition; Geng Wenqiang, the first World Cup sub-station champion of the Chinese steel frame snowmobile project, regrettably failed due to poor performance in the selection competition.

"Post-95" athlete Yin Zheng won the championship in many intercontinental races this season, and his cart starting speed reached world-class levels, while Yan Wengang ranked 4th in the first round of the steel frame ski world cup Winterberg. The men's steel frame snowmobile champions of the last three Winter Olympics are all from the host country, and the outstanding performance of Chinese steel frame snowmobile athletes in multiple races also makes people look forward to the project.

Since being officially announced as the female flag bearer of the Chinese delegation at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Zhao Dan, a young player after the "00s", has attracted much attention from the outside world, saying that she will "strive to show her best self on the field". Zhao Dan, 19, is the youngest player in the Chinese steel frame snow team, but she has a "big general demeanor" on the field. In 2020, Zhao Dan represented China at the Winter Youth Olympic Games and finished 7th; in the 2021/2022 season, she won the Intercontinental Cup in Innsbruck.

However, the 2 gold medals of the steel frame snowmobile are also eyeed by foreign players. Latvian Martins Ducurs, a two-time Winter Olympic silver medalist and six gold medalist at the World Championships, has won 11 World Cup annual championships since his participation in the tournament in 1998, and he is the only missing Olympic gold medal in his career, and he will once again launch a gold medal attack on the gold medal in this event. In terms of women's steel frame snowmobiles, the gold medals of the last three Winter Olympics have been spent on British athletes, but the Beijing Winter Olympics will encounter strong challenges from Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and other countries.

During the Beijing Winter Olympics, 106 bobsleigh athletes from 26 countries and regions will compete for four gold medals. The bobsleigh project developed late in China, and it is a historic breakthrough to be able to step into the Winter Olympics.

Fan Duoyao will take the lead in the men's single event on February 5, stagnant debuting the Winter Olympics for Chinese bobsled skaters. From cross-country skiing to sledding, Fan Duoyao has grown from "a blank piece of paper" to the captain of the men's team of the bobsleigh national team in the past 6 years; previously, after qualifying for the Bobsleigh World Cup, he and his teammates won the 9th place in the World Cup team relay event, creating the best record in the history of the Chinese team in the World Cup event. Wang Peixuan broke into the main competition at the World Cup sochi station and finished 25th, making a new breakthrough in the Chinese bobsleigh women's single event. Fan and Wang will play for China with the duo huang yebo and Peng Junyue.

Germany, the traditional powerhouse of the bobsleigh event, also sent a luxurious lineup this time: Felix Loch, who won 6 world championships and 3 winter Olympic gold medalists, and Natalie Geisenberg, who won 4 gold and 1 silver in 3 winter olympics, and other famous athletes.

From the debut of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics to the full-event participation of the Beijing Winter Olympics, in the past four years, the Chinese snowmobile, steel frame snowmobile and bobsleigh national teams have made great progress through cross-border cross-sports selection, and many small events have obtained the "admission ticket" of the Winter Olympics for the first time. In this home battle, due to the advantage of the host, Chinese players have more time to carry out adaptive training on the race track, or have breakthrough performances. At the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the host Korean team won 1 gold and 1 silver in the steel frame snowmobile and four-person snowmobile event.

On February 5th, the National Snowmobile Bobsleigh Center will start its first battle, Chinese ice and snow athletes will lightly pack to show "strength and beauty", and the "Snow Dragon" track is expected to witness the "Chinese speed" to achieve another good result. (End)