On the afternoon of February 14, Beijing time, in the first round of the Beijing Winter Olympics Freestyle Ski women's Aerial Skills Qualification Tournament, China's Xu Mengtao scored 101.10 points, taking the lead in advancing to the final. According to the rules, the top 6 in the first round of the qualifier (including the tie) enter the first round of the final, and the remaining players enter the second round of the qualifier; the top 6 (including the tie) in the second round of the qualifier enter the first round of the final, and the rest of the players are eliminated.
As the runner-up winner of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Xu Mengtao made his second appearance in the preliminaries. As a result, she was very successful in completing the two-week maneuver of the churning three-turn body with a difficulty factor of 4.028. In the end, the referee gave Xu Mengtao a score of 5.2 for jumping, 11.8 for aerial action, and 8.1 for landing, with a total score of 101.20 points. Xu Mengtao also successfully passed through the final as the third place in the first round of the preliminary round.
Xu Mengtao is the main opponent in the competition for the gold medal. American Ashley Caldwell made his final appearance in the preliminaries. Caldwell's action difficulty factor is 4.293 points. Despite the average quality of the American star,101.31 points, he ranked second with 0.21 points higher than Xu Mengtao.
For the scoring of the referee group, Qiu Zhaoyi, the international referee of the International Snow Federation Freestyle Skiing who served as the commentator, said bluntly in the commentary: "The score of the American players is high! It is worth noting that Caldwell has led the American team in the previous mixed team competition, defeating the Chinese team led by Xu Mengtao, and the two will once again compete fiercely for the gold medal in the final.
Although the results of the preliminary round will not be brought to the final, the phenomenon that American players are more "favored" by the referee group still makes many netizens feel worried. Perhaps in the final, Xu Mengtao, the "elder of the four dynasties", can only come up with more difficult moves, or more convincing completion quality, in order to defeat many European and American strong players and get this gold medal.