Fly close to the ground! Yan Wengang won the bronze medal in the men's steel frame snowmobile, setting a record for the best result in the history of the Chinese team

On the evening of February 11, the Men's Steel Frame Snowmobile of the Beijing Winter Olympics came to an end in the "Snow Tour Dragon", and Chinese player Yan Wengang won the bronze medal, creating the best result of Chinese athletes in the steel frame snowmobile event of the Winter Olympics. In addition, another Chinese player, Yin Zheng, ranked fifth.

The Winter Olympics steel frame bobsleigh event is held in four rounds, and after the first three rounds are added together, the top 20 players can advance to the final. In the first two rounds of the race on the 10th, Yan Wengang's results were 1 minute 0.43 seconds and 1 minute 0.65 seconds, and the total time of the two rounds was 2 minutes 01 seconds 08, ranking third in the third round of another Chinese player, Yin Zheng, who set a track departure record of 4.06 seconds and ranked 7th with 2 minutes 01 seconds 45

In the game on the evening of the 11th, Yan Wengang finished the third round with a total score of 3:01.62, and slipped one place in the ranking to fourth. Yin Zheng was 7th in 3:01.85. At this time, Yan Wengang trailed the first place by 1.13 seconds, basically losing the hope of winning the championship, but still retaining the hope of winning the medal.

In the fourth round, Yan Wengang finished the race in 1 minute 00.15 seconds, ranking first among all the participants, and also set a personal best result in four rounds. With the perfect performance of the fourth round, Yan Wengang successfully won a bronze medal.

The charm of the steel frame snowmobile is the extremely fast speed. At the same time, its charm is also dangerous. Before the race, Yan Wengang said that before he first went on the track, he had not even sat on the playground roller coaster, and was pushed down from bend 10 halfway up the mountain by the foreign teacher. Although the speed at that time was far from reaching the speed of the steel frame snowmobile, Yan Wengang was still very nervous.

In one practice after another, Yan Wengang fell in love with this project full of speed and passion. After the training, Yan Wengang was repeatedly injured by the unskilled movements. Day after day of training, he often left his old wounds unhealed and added new marks.

The steel frame snowmobile project has a history of more than 100 years, but the China Steel Frame Snow Team was only established in 2015, a few months after Beijing successfully bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. At the beginning of the formation of the team, neither the personnel nor the venue were guaranteed. Yan Wengang, who practiced long jumping before, and Yin Zheng, who practiced sprinting, both cross-border cross-event to the steel frame snow team. Years of athletics training experience, so that Yan Wengang and Yin Zheng have excellent explosive power, which is also a necessary physical fitness in the starting stage of the steel frame snowmobile project.

At the last Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, China's Geng Wenqiang competed alone, achieving a 13th-place result for the Chinese team. In the four years from Pyeongchang to Beijing, the Chinese team has made great strides in a short period of time from only one athlete participating, to having two athletes participating at the same time, and then winning a medal.

However, there is still a lot of room for the Chinese steel frame snow team to learn. Yan Wengang admitted before the game that Chinese players with the advantage of hosting have been training on the "Snow Dragon" track for a while. When foreign athletes can achieve their desired results after only walking through this track a few times, they sincerely admire and admire.

"My goal is to stand on the podium of the Winter Olympics and achieve a historic breakthrough for Chinese athletes in the steel frame snowmobile project of the Winter Olympics." This was Yan Wengang's goal and commitment before the game, and now he has done it. The Chinese bobsleigh project, which has just started, will also continue to ride on the east wind of the Winter Olympics and continue to rush to the ground.