Freestyle skiing Varberg men's snow skills upset to win the championship

Chongli, Hebei, February 5 (Xinhua) -- On the evening of the 5th, the Beijing Winter Olympics gave birth to the first gold medal in the freestyle ski event at the Chongli Genting Ski Park, and Sweden's Walter Varberg won the first Olympic gold medal in the history of the project with a perfect performance in the final round of the men's snow skills final, with a high score of 83.23 points to beat the champion Canadian star and Pyeongchang Winter Olympic champion Kingsbury.

Sweden's Walter Varberg won the men's snow skiing skills final at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing on February 5. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wu Zhuang

On the same day, the first round of the qualifier was the second round of the qualifying round, with 20 players who failed to reach the final in the first round competing for the remaining 10 final places, and Swedish player Elovsson played well in this round and reached the final with the first place. Zhao Yang, the first to represent the Chinese team in the men's snow skills field of the Winter Olympics, has a smoother movement and shorter time than the first round, but there is still a gap between the overall strength and the world's top players, ranking 20th, and failing to go further.

The final is divided into three rounds, with 20 players taking the top 12 and then deciding on the top 6, and then deciding on the championship through the final round, which also requires the players to have a high degree of stability. After the first two rounds of the final, six players, including defending champion Kingsbury, Sweden's Varberg, Japan's Yukima Horishima, and France's Cawe, successfully qualified for the final finale.

In the last round, the six players all tried their best to show their highest level, and the highlights and surprises of the game were frequent, and the scores were all high above 78 points. Defending champion Kingsbury, the penultimate appearance, relied on skidding skills and graceful aerial posture to achieve the highest score of 82.18 points of the tournament. Just when most people thought that he would win the project championship, the last Swedish player Varberg was perfect in both sliding and flipping, and he finally beat Kingsbury with his higher speed score, breaking the cold and creating a new history for the Swedish team.

In the end, Kingsbury won the silver medal and Japan's Yukima Horishima won the bronze medal.

Editors: Shu Wen, Yu Sihui, Cao Yibo