From the "origin of human skiing" to the main torchbearer of the Beijing Winter Olympics - remembering the torchbearer Diniger Yilamujiang

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 5 Title: From the "Origin of Human Skiing" to the Main Torch Platform of the Beijing Winter Olympics - Remembering the Torchbearer Diniger Yilamujiang

Xinhua News Agency reporter Ma Kai

The flames of the Beijing Winter Olympics lit up every snowflake that made up the torch stand, and also illuminated the eyes of Diniger Yilamujiang.

As one of the two post-00 Chinese athletes who put the last torch directly on the main torchbearer, she has realized her Winter Olympic dream from the "birthplace of human skiing".

20-year-old Diniger Yilamujiang, a Uighur girl born in the Altay region of Xinjiang in the northwest corner of her homeland, will represent the Chinese cross-country skiing team at the Winter Olympics.

In 2005, a petroglyph of the Altai Mountains ancestors riding snowboards and holding a single pole ski hunt was discovered in her hometown, and experts speculate that it is about 10,000 years old, or even earlier. Since then, Altay's view of being the "birthplace of human skiing" has gained wider recognition.

The mountains are high and snowy, with snow for more than 6 months a year, and the unique geographical and climatic conditions make the life of the locals inseparable from skiing. As early as the 1980s, the Altay region sent a number of alpine skiers and cross-country skiers to the country.

Her father, Iramujan Mulaji, was a former cross-country skier and finished third in a national cross-country skiing competition in 1993. In 2010, a 20-member youth cross-country skiing team was formed in the Altay region, with Ilamjan Mulaji as the coach.

There are 3 girls in the team, and Diniger is one of them, and she has been associated with cross-country skiing since then.

Their training ground is in the mountains on the outskirts of the city. Before each training session, she and her teammates would line up in a horizontal line, move step by step, use her own gravity to use the snowboard to press the snow path on the snow, and then step back to step back to step on the groove for the snowboard to pass. In the wild, where the snow is often as deep as 1 meter, they often have to spend seven or eight hours pressing the snow and freezing the slopes for one night before they can train.

In 2012, the 12th National Winter Games was held in Jilin, and Diniger represented the Altay region. After the game, she told her father that she hoped to win the game like a professional athlete and stand on the podium. With the support of her father, she officially embarked on the road of professional skiing.

In 2015, the beijing winter olympics successfully bid, igniting the enthusiasm of Chinese to participate in ice and snow sports, and also ignited the engine of the rapid development of China's ice and snow economy. Relying on high-quality ice and snow resources, Diniger's hometown has built an international ski resort, which has become a ski resort that must be "punched" in the hearts of many snow friends at home and abroad.

Her hometown is growing, Diniger is growing, and talent and hard work have helped her enter the national cross-country ski team. Since then, she has performed well in the International Junior Ski Championships and cross-country skiing World Cup. In 2019, when she went to Norway to train with the national cross-country ski team, she said that she hoped that she would "try to do her best and win glory for the country at the Beijing Winter Olympics."

"There are tens of thousands of people in an amateur event." Her father, who accompanied her to Norway for training, was quite touched, "Only by encouraging more people to participate in ice and snow sports will more people appear." ”

As of October 2021, the number of participants in ice and snow sports in China has reached 346 million, and the goal of "driving 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports" has been achieved. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Chinese sports delegation achieved a historical breakthrough and sent 177 athletes to participate in all 7 major events and 15 sub-events.

The father's expectations have been fulfilled, and the daughter's dream is in sight. In November last year, Diniger won the international snow federation points competition hot spring station competition, and she was gradually selected for the Chinese sports delegation at the Beijing Winter Olympics. She will compete in the women's doubles event of cross-country skiing at the Beijing Winter Olympics on the 5th.

From the "origin of human skiing" to the main torchbearer of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Diniger's footsteps of pursuing dreams will not stop, and the development of Ice and Snow Sports in China will also go far. (End)