Li Baoquan, China's first national champion of ski jumping, talks about Gu Ailing: she is a competition player

On February 8, 18-year-old Gu Ailing won the gold medal with a stunning jump on the Shougang Ski Jump, which became the most exciting moment since the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

35 years ago, in February 1987, 18-year-old Li Baoquan jumped at the Sixth National Winter Games and became China's first national ski jumper.

In an interview with the Beijing Daily client reporter, Li Baoquan said that Gu Ailing is a competition-type player, she is "love + persistence" for skiing, the courage to challenge herself, the more fierce the competition, the more excited she is. After winning the gold medal in the big jump in this way, "I saw that her gold medals in the other two events had a play." Saying that Gu Ailing is a genius, I think it is correct. Li Baoquan said.

Next, Gu Ailing will try more boldly

Ski jumping was an official sport at the first Winter Olympics in 1924, but started late in China. Li Baoquan is a ski jumping champion at the Two National Winter Games. At the 6th National Winter Games in February 1987, at the age of 18, he won China's first national championship of ski jumping with a score of 47 meters. The jumping platform used at that time was still the K50 class, not the K70 or K90 of the official international competition. The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin were the first appearances of Chinese ski jumpers at the Winter Olympics, and the second appearance was at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

Gu Ailing's gold-winning freestyle skiing women's big jump event is a new event for the Beijing Winter Olympics. Unlike ski jumping, the freestyle ski jump has a height of 50 meters, while the National Ski Jumping Center "Snow Ruyi" is an example, and its big jump is 136.2 meters. From the scoring criteria, the freestyle ski jump looks at the athlete's aerial movements and skills, while the ski jump looks at the flight distance and aerial posture.

Gu Ailing is only 18 years old, li Baoquan said, freestyle ski jumping and snowboard jumping at the same venue are new snow sports, athletes are very young, and only one person over 30 years old competes with Gu Ailing.

"The big jump is similar to the freestyle skiing aerial technique, and the difficult action is the decisive factor for winning. If the difficulty of the action can be reached to the extreme, and there is no mistake on the ground, it is likely to be the champion. Li Baoquan said.

The freestyle ski jump is the weaker of Gu Ailing's three Winter Olympics events. With the perfect completion of the difficult action deflection rotation body in the final jump that he had never tried for two weeks 1620 degrees, Gu Ailing shocked and won the championship. Li Baoquan believes that the reason why Gu Ailing was able to win gold with such a wonderful and shocking performance mainly stemmed from three points: "First of all, love." The second is persistence. The third is to have the courage to challenge herself, and the more intense the competition, the more excited she is. The last jump she didn't keep, which was the key to her success. ”

Before the final jump, Gu Ailing locked in the top three with the first two jumps, which was already a great success for an 18-year-old who debuted at the Winter Olympics. Li Baoquan told reporters that in this case, it is inevitable that Gu Ailing will try ultra-difficult moves to strive for the best results. Judging by Gu Ailing's current momentum, her performance in the freestyle ski U-shaped course and freestyle ski slope obstacle courses is more worth looking forward to, because she will be more bold to try.

In addition, after the victory of the first battle, Gu Ailing has won honors for the motherland, and his mentality can be relaxed. Li Baoquan believes that in the next two items, if Gu Ailing can play a normal training level and avoid mistakes, there is a great hope to continue to bring surprises.

"Gu Ailing is a big competition player and has super strength. To say she is a genius, I think I am right. Li Baoquan said.

Ski jumping and aerial skills are suitable for Chinese

The Beijing Winter Olympics is the third time that Chinese ski jumpers have played in the Winter Olympics, and so far, Chinese athletes have performed normally. Li Baoquan, deputy director of the Jilin Snow Sports Training Center (Aquatrain Center), has been responsible for training and selecting ski jumpers from the ski jumping seedlings at the National Skydiving Team Base in Anyang, Henan Province, in recent years.

Li Baoquan said that under the promotion of the state, the domestic ski jumping project has developed rapidly. At present, China has built 5 ski jumping bases such as "Xue Ruyi" and Hebei Laiyuan National Ski Jumping Training and Scientific Research Base, which allow ski jumpers to train in summer. He said that like freestyle aerial skills and big jumping, ski jumping is actually one of the snow sports that are suitable for the physical characteristics of Chinese.

"In the past, China's ski jumping project started late, and there were many restrictions on the conditions of domestic training venues." Li Baoquan said that in terms of the current development of domestic ski jumping, in the 2026 Milan/Cortina Dampezzo Winter Olympics 4 years later, more Chinese ski jumpers will appear on the stage of the Winter Olympics.

(Beijing Daily)