Yesterday, in the men's steel frame snowmobile competition at the Beijing Winter Olympics, China's Yan Wengang won the bronze medal with a time of 4 minutes and 1 second 77, and the whole network cheered.
Steel frame snowmobiles, which are extremely mature sports in Europe and the United States, have rarely seen Asian figures until 2015, the Beijing Winter Olympics bid successfully, China set up the first steel frame snow team, at that time, the mainland did not even have a bobsleigh track for this sport.
In just 7 years, China's first bobsleigh track certified by the International Snow Federation, "Snow Dragon", lay quietly in Yanqing, Beijing, witnessing the occurrence of breakthroughs and miracles, which attracted the world's attention; the team that was "in danger" also "flew" from Xiaobai to the podium, which was the first time that Chinese athletes had reached the podium of the Winter Olympics in this project.
The stinging dragon was asleep, and a thousand mountains shook with a roar.
The first steel-framed snow convoy
In the steel frame snowmobile event, the average speed is 120km/h, up to 140km/h, during the race, the athletes start in a standing position, get the starting speed by running about 40 meters, and then lie on the steel frame snowmobile and slide down the track in a head-down posture. Because of its speed and extreme danger, the sport is also known as the "F1" of the ice and snow world.
According to the International Olympic Committee, the steel-framed bobsleigh was developed by a resort in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in the 19th century, and the project was included in the official Olympic competition in 1928 and 1948 at its "birthplace" of St. Moritz. However, due to the high danger, it was cancelled after 1948, until the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, which once again became a winter Olympic event. Although the history of the project in the Olympic Games is not long, it has never stopped in European and American countries.
Before 2018, Asians were rarely seen in this competition, and the medals of the Winter Olympics were basically won by European and American athletes, and it was not until 2018 that this record was broken.
At that year's Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, host athlete Yoon Chengbin from South Korea won Asia's first gold medal in the event.
Also in that year, China's Yan Wengang overpowered many European masters and won the first European gold medal in the history of China's steel frame snowmobile in The King's Lake in One fell swoop. At that time, the Chinese steel frame snowmobile national team was less than two years old, and in the veteran European Cup, Yan Wengang staged a "ants shake the elephant".
This story begins in 2015.
According to Guangzhou Daily, before the successful bid for the Beijing Winter Olympics, China's steel frame snowmobile project was almost blank, with no special tracks and no special athletes. In 2015, with the successful bid for the Beijing Winter Olympics, the China Steel Frame Snow Racing Team began to form.
It was in the selection at that time that 18-year-old Tianjin boy Yan Wengang was selected from the track and field long jump team to enter the steel frame snowmobile national team, and Geng Wenqiang, born in 1995, was a track and field athlete, and also joined the steel frame snow team at that time and served as the captain. Later, The Turin Winter Olympic silver medalist and Canadian Jeff Pan also came to the team to be responsible for the training of key players, leading the team with professional guidance and experience.
That's how the team got up.
The steel frame snowmobile has a running distance before taxiing, and athletes with strong strength and explosive power have a natural advantage after the transfer. In other countries, cross-discipline selection of athletes is also common, and there is even no shortage of "all-rounders" who participate in both the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics.
But even with the experience of athletes, the steel frame snowmobile is still suffering for everyone. The vertical drop of the steel frame snowmobile track is more than 110 meters, and the fastest speed can exceed 130 kilometers per hour. For starters, the premise of enjoying the ride is to overcome fear. Recalling the feeling of experiencing the steel frame snowmobile for the first time, Yan Wengang said bluntly, "I was very scared at the beginning, and that sense of fear is really unforgettable." ”
From letting go of fear to increasing speed and controlling the taxiing route, it takes hundreds of taxiing trainings to accumulate gliding experience and track experience before you can put into the race, Yan Wengang revealed that after becoming proficient, his mentality has also changed, "Gradually becoming proficient, I found that it was not so scary, and it felt like a very exciting project." ”
Just two years later, at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, Captain Geng Wenqiang represented China for the first time in the steel frame bobsleigh event and won 13th place.
In November 2021, in the men's World Cup men's competition of steel frame skis in Innsbruck, Austria, Geng Wenqiang won the championship and Yan Wengang won the eighth place. A total of 25 athletes competed in the Men's Steel Frame Bobsleigh at the Beijing Olympic Games. The Chinese team sent two players, Yan Wengang and Yin Zheng, to the Winter Olympics.
Yin Zheng, 24, is from Shanxi and was still at Beijing Sport University in 2017. After entering the national training team through cross-item selection, Yin Zheng played his technical characteristics of good explosiveness and strong ability to push the sled. After four years of training, Yin Zheng's starting ability has reached the world-class level.
Last night, in the men's steel frame snowmobile race at the Beijing Winter Olympics, Yan Wengang won the bronze medal with a time of 4 minutes 1.77 seconds, which was the first time that a Chinese athlete had reached the podium of the Winter Olympics in this event, and Yin Zheng finished fifth.
After the competition, the Winter Games Center of the National Sports Center sent a congratulatory letter praising Yan Wengang for "not being afraid of strong hands, daring to fight and dare to fight", and congratulating the Chinese steel frame snow team on winning this precious medal.
The first Olympic standard track
The steel frame snowmobile project, which originated in Europe, has a history of hundreds of years, and it is conceivable that they have advantages in track construction and athlete training system.
According to Shangguan News, due to seasonal and venue restrictions, after the establishment of the Chinese steel frame snow team, it could only train and compete in Europe, North America and other places for a long time. Long-term wandering outside, the team members in the training pressure at the same time, but also to overcome the foreign life is not adapted.
In the past year, Chinese athletes have traveled to all of the world's 17 tracks except for a few that have not been able to train or race due to closures or the epidemic. In the Winter Olympic season, the Chinese team won a total of 8 European Championships, 2 Intercontinental Cups and 1 World Cup, and made significant progress in the preparation and participation process.
In 2018, construction of the Continental National Bobsleigh Center began.
According to Wen Wei Po, the shape of the dragon is like a long-range shock, but in the construction process, the project team is also facing unimaginable difficulties - 16 curves with different angles, how to ensure the same density and molding accuracy? For the Winter Olympics "speed-bearing" bobsleigh project, every surface and every detail of the track determines the performance of the race and concerns the safety of the athletes.
Initially, the project team tried traditional concrete, but due to the short condensation time, the staff had no time to repair the ice surface. Even with the use of quick-setting agents, the effect is still not good. After many trials, the project team began to compare the material characteristics and advantages of major venues around the world in detail. In the end, after more than 300 times of mix ratio adjustment, more than 600 times of spray tests, thousands of measurements and tests, and nearly 2,000 square meters of sprayed concrete consumption, the problem of proportion was overcome.
After self-development of special concrete spray material, it is also necessary to cooperate with professional sprayers. In the construction of venues for the previous Winter Olympics, most of the host cities chose to hire from overseas with high salaries, but the "Snow Dragon" faced the challenge. After more than a year of "devil training", the project team independently cultivated the first concrete sprayer team in China, and in the end, the track successfully achieved a successful pour with millimeter-level precision, and could withstand more than 400 freeze-thaw cycles.
The ice-making process is also not to be sloppy.
Whether the track ice and snow can be "naturally formed" depends on the efforts of the ice team. Water pipes, sprinklers, ice knives... This is a must-have for ice makers. "Oh...", the ice makers should spray the pure water mist on the surface of the low-temperature concrete layer by layer, and then let the water mist solidify into ice. From force control to angle grasp, the details are all based on experience. When encountering the bend of the high wall, it is also necessary to use a special method - spraying along the high wall. In this way, the flowing water can be naturally turned into ice.
Once the water spray starts, it must be operated continuously. Once the "Snow Dragon" starts ice making, it will require 20 domestic ice makers and 16 international ice makers to cooperate for 7 days and 24 hours a day. The five-centimeter-thick ice path is the "crystallization" of the ice makers who have traveled back and forth thousands of times. When the ice surface is complete, the work is still not finished.
After each slide, the ice surface is inevitably damaged, and the ice makers have to repair the ice and repair the ice. At this time, the ice surface temperature is particularly critical. Once the temperature is too high, it will be prone to frost, frost will catch bubbles, when these bubbles move outward will cause small dents, affecting the athlete's gliding trajectory, and even life-threatening. At this time, the refrigeration system operation and maintenance masters must cooperate with the ice makers to adjust and improve the ice surface temperature together. Thousands of run-in experiences, tacit understanding gradually formed.
The 1975-meter track consists of 54 track segments containing independent refrigeration units, and its internal pipes are as intricate as the blood vessels of the human body. Due to the undulating and flipping of the track, the constant change in the shape of its cross-section leads to different height positions and lengths of the refrigeration pipes in the stage. In order to ensure that the cooling temperature of the track is uniform, the size of the valve selected for each stage and the size of the valve opening during commissioning are different. After hundreds of repeated commissioning, the system can be tuned to its best condition.
Today, the temperature difference between 54 independent refrigeration sections can be successfully controlled within 1 degree.
With the completion of the National Bobsleigh Center in Yanqing, Beijing, the steel frame snowmobile team members who are wandering outside finally have a "home". From July to September last year, the national steel frame snowmobile training team conducted the last summer training before the Winter Olympics at the "Snow Tour Dragon", which also won valuable training experience for the Chinese team.
Pictured from Visual China
What is more surprising is that in the entire construction process, the National Bobsleigh Center has also opened a number of domestic "firsts" and filled a number of domestic technical experience gaps. Up to now, the "Snow Dragon" that took three years to build has applied for 131 patents (including 57 invention patents) and won a number of national, provincial and ministerial awards.
The Tech Olympics aren't just talking!
Today, the Mainland National Bobsleigh Center is like a giant dragon quietly meandering in Xidazhuangke Village, Yanqing District, Beijing, witnessing the occurrence of breakthroughs and miracles, it also has a more romantic name "Snow Dragon", it is also the third in Asia certified by the International Snowmobile Federation, the 17th bobsleigh track in the world, and the first bobsleigh track in China.
In the past 7 years, it is not only our athletes who are moving forward, but also the entire steel frame bobsleigh project. Athletes are speeding on the undulating track in a prone posture, which is not a microcosm of China in this project, along the way, from scratch, from weak to strong, difficulties, and then, standing on the podium! And that's just the beginning!
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