On the evening of February 2, Beijing time, the Beijing Winter Olympic Curling Mixed Doubles Round Robin Tournament kicked off at the Beijing National Aquatics Center "Ice Cube", which was also the first event to be launched at the Beijing Winter Olympics. In the match of the day, the Chinese curling mixed doubles team played against the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic runner-up Swiss team, which was also the debut of the Chinese sports delegation in the Winter Olympic Games. In the cheers of the home audience, Ling Zhi and Fan Suyuan played well, and after 8 rounds of competition, the two sides fought a 6-6 draw, and finally the Chinese team defeated the opponent 7-6 through the extra match, ushering in the opening red.
Ling Zhi and Fan Suyuan (right)
According to the schedule, the Curling Competition of the Winter Olympic Games will end on the 20th, with a total of 19 competition days, which will last from two days before the opening ceremony to the day of the closing ceremony. According to media statistics, this is the competition event with the longest time and the most competitions in this Winter Olympic Games, with a total of more than 100 games. In order to stand out in this "long battle", the Chinese curling team in order to polish their own strength and let the best players appear on the field of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, organized 6 Olympic trials since November last year, in addition to the mixed doubles partners Ling Zhi and Fan Suyuan combination, the Chinese women's team Jiang Xindi, Zhang Lijun, Dong Ziqi and the "post-00s" captain Han Yu and Wang Rui participated in the Beijing Winter Olympics. This team is a young team formed after the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. Among them, Han Yu, Zhang Lijun and Jiang Xindi once won the Asia-Pacific Championship championship for the Chinese women's team in 2019 after a gap of 5 years. Dong Ziqi joined the team since then to form the current lineup, and they finally finished 10th at the 2021 Curling World Championships. I believe that in the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, these girls showed their charm with the power of youth and realized their dreams with "initial heart and heart".
In the Chinese men's team, the lineup was Xu Jingtao at first base, Wang Zhiyu at second base, Zou Qiang at third base, ma Xiuyue at fourth base, and Jiang Dongxu as a substitute. Although all five players participated in the Winter Olympics for the first time, the team led by Ma Xiuyue performed well in the selection competition, and the team members had solid basic skills and certain strength. During the Beijing Winter Olympics cycle, Zou Qiang cooperated with Xu Jingtao, Wang Zhiyu and Ba Dexin to win the second place in the Curling World Cup, creating the best result of Chinese men's curling in the international competition. In the Winter Olympic season, Ma Xiuyue joined and served as the main general. Although he is over 30 years old, Ma Xiuyue is considered a "rookie" in the international arena, he lacks world series experience, this time directly participating in the Winter Olympics, whether Ma Xiuyue can overcome the ups and downs of mentality to play his best state is crucial for Chinese men's curling. It is worth mentioning that due to the impact of the epidemic, several teams of the Chinese team are facing the problems of few opportunities to participate in the competition and lack of experience in the competition, and hope that they can show their style when they play at home.
In addition to the Chinese curling team, the performance of the Chinese figure skating team at this Winter Olympics is also worthy of people's attention. Compared with the speed skating team that has won 11 winter olympic gold medals, although the Chinese figure skating team is still difficult to forget, this team is also a force that cannot be ignored in the Chinese Winter Olympic team. Founded in 1986, the team made a breakthrough at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, with Chen Lu winning the bronze medal in the women's singles event and the first Olympic medal for Chinese figure skating.
At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, Shen Xue/Zhao Hongbo, Pang Qing/Tong Jian, Zhang Dan/Zhang Hao won the first, second and fifth place respectively, creating the "golden age" of Chinese figure skating. By the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the Chinese figure skating team won a total of 1 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze, a total of 8 Winter Olympic medals.
At the Beijing Winter Olympics, there are 5 sub-events in figure skating, which are team, men's single skating, ice dance, women's single skating and pair skating according to the order of the competition. The competition began on the morning of the opening ceremony on February 4 and lasted until the final pair skating gold medal was produced on February 19. Chinese figure skating has won 2 pair skates, 1 ice dance, 1 men's single skate and 1 women's single skate for a total of 5 individual places, as well as team qualification.
In the pair skating competition, the Combination of Sui Wenjing/Han Cong, Peng Cheng/Jin Yang formed a double insurance, especially the combination of Sui Wenjing/Han Cong, who partnered for 14 years, after four years of regret to pick up silver in Pyeongchang, after four years of grinding, it has become more mature, and this pair skating gold medal Chinese legion is already determined to win. In addition, although the ice dance started late in the mainland, Wang Shiyue/Liu Xinyu made significant progress in the Beijing cycle and strived to make a breakthrough.
Wang Shiyue
Chinese figure skater
In terms of preparation, we have always gritted our teeth, every game, every stage, and then we are trying to push ourselves.
Liu Xinyu
Although it is difficult to train like this, Shi Yue and I also said that we can't give up and fight for the Olympic Games.
Figure skating women's singles, after a month of 3 stops and 5 Olympic trials, zhu Yi, a 19-year-old "little flower", stood out in the fierce competition and won the only winter Olympic women's single skating quota.
In the men's singles, the Chinese men's figure skating singles have not yet won Olympic medals, while the Beijing Winter Olympics, the star of hope, Jin Boyang, is a player who has high hopes for everyone. In order to impact the medals of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Jin Boyang's team has choreographed two new sets of programs for him, and increased the difficulty on several jumps, which has also strengthened his overall competitiveness. Judging from the strength of the men's singles players in figure skating at the Winter Olympics, Yusheng Yuxian and Chen Wei, two super-first-class players, have almost booked the top two in advance, but the competition for the third place is unprecedentedly fierce, but Jin Boyang, who occupies the right time and place, hopes to be greater, depending on whether he can show his strongest self.
Jin Boyang
The overall jumping sensation is not very good, but remind yourself when you fall on the ice that no matter what the situation is, you must drop your own ice.
Zhao Hongbo
Head coach of the Chinese figure skating team
In fact, in the preparation stage of the Olympic Games, everyone is competing with themselves, to train themselves more steadily, or to train higher quality, so we still emphasize the quality of our movements. In fact, in the Olympic games, we must be stable, that is, to play the highest quality actions of the two sets of programs in the Olympic games.
Ice hockey is one of the few collective ice sports in the Winter Olympic Games, and it is the most ornamental. The Beijing Winter Olympics ice hockey tournament will be held from February 3 to 20, 2022, with a total of 58 matches, including 28 games of women's ice hockey from February 3 to 17, and 30 games of men's ice hockey from February 9 to 20. Due to the long schedule and many games, ice hockey will be the only ice sport to be played in both venues. There are 12 teams in the men's event, and the Chinese men's team is in Group A with the Canadian, American and German teams.
The women's event was expanded from 8 to 10, with China and Japan, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Sweden in Group B. This is the fourth time that Chinese women's ice has participated in the Winter Olympics, and the 4th place at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics is the best record achieved by Chinese women's ice so far. In preparation for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the Chinese women's ice hockey national training team participated in the regular season and several warm-up matches in the first stage of the 2021-2022 Russian Women's Ice Hockey League, and returned to China at the end of December. At the Beijing Olympics, if the Chinese women's team wants to reach the quarterfinals, every minute of the group stage is crucial. Compared with the women's ice hockey team, the Chinese men's ice team that stood on the stage of the Winter Olympics for the first time, currently ranked 32nd in the world, and the teams ranked 1st, 4th and 5th in the world in Canada, the United States and Germany are in the same group, there is no doubt that there is a gap between the strength and the strong teams in Europe and the United States, after all, Chinese ice hockey has just started, a momentary victory or defeat is not the most important thing, we are more tolerant and rational about the results of the Winter Olympics, dialogue with strong hands, dare to challenge, dare to show the sword is the most valuable.
Han Pengfei
Member of the Chinese men's ice hockey team
For the Winter Olympics, it is a race against the clock, and everyone works together to win glory for the country on the field of the Winter Olympics.
Yu Baiwei
Captain of the Chinese women's ice hockey team
This time, I hope we can play better than before, I can feel that this team is gradually maturing and gradually improving, and I hope that everyone can see a better Chinese female ice.