Source: Sports Weekly
In the Chinese freestyle skiing aerial skills team, there are three veterans, Xu Mengtao, Jia Zongyang and Qi Guangpu, all of whom share a common title of "The Elders of the Four Dynasties of the Winter Olympics", however, the difference is that before the Beijing Winter Olympics, Xu Mengtao and Jia Zongyang stood on the podium of the Winter Olympics, and Qi Guangpu's best result in the previous three Winter Olympics was the 4th place in Sochi in 2014, just one step away from the podium.
However, after winning the men's aerial skills final at the Beijing Winter Olympics on the evening of February 17, Qi Guangpu surpassed his old friend Jia Zongyang and became the second best result of Chinese athletes in the history of the Winter Olympics, second only to Xu Mengtao, with a score of 1 gold and 1 silver.
Qi Guangpu was not born in the land of ice and snow, but his hometown of Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, has a great relationship with "freestyle skiing aerial skills". Han Xiaopeng, China's first gold medalist in freestyle skiing aerial skills, is from this. The reason why Qi Guangpu was able to be selected to enter this project is also because of Han Xiaopeng's success, so that Qi Guangpu got the opportunity to be "selected materials" and also became Han Xiaopeng's disciple.
Qi Guangpu is characterized by his difficulty, and his fame battle was the 2013 World Championships, where he was the first to complete the 5.0, which is still the highest difficulty in the project, and won the world championship that year, and was also awarded the title of "King of Difficulty".
At the 2015 World Championships, Qi Guangpu successfully defended the gold medal in the men's aerial skills event of freestyle skiing, and in those years, he also won many times in the World Cup. However, with many honors, he always has regrets in the field of the Winter Olympics.
At the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, four Chinese participated, led by defending champion Han Xiaopeng, somewhat like this Beijing Winter Olympics, plus veteran Liu Zhongqing, and Qi Guangpu and Jia Zongyang, who participated in the Winter Olympics for the first time. In that competition, veteran Liu Zhongqing won a bronze medal, the best result among the four, while Jia Zongyang and Qi Guangpu, one sixth, one seventh, ended their first Winter Olympics trip in a decent manner.
Although such a result is not very good, for Qi Guangpu, he is still full of confidence in the future. However, the next thing made him suffer repeatedly.
At the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Qi Guangpu jumped out of the second highest score of all the players in the first round of the final, 121.24 points, which was only surpassed by the final gold medalist Belarusian Anton Kushniel in the final jump. However, the biggest feature of the freestyle ski aerial skills program is also the most exciting point, that is, there is no fault tolerance rate. Before the final jump, the score was zeroed out, and everyone was on the same running line. As a result, Qi Guangpu only jumped 90 points, ranking at the bottom of the four who were finally promoted. For the first time, he also watched his friend Jia Zongyang on the podium of the Winter Olympics.
Four years later in Pyeongchang, Jia Zongyang went further and won the silver medal, while Qi Guangpu did not even make it to the final showdown, and the results of not advancing and retreating also made Qi Guangpu choose to retire briefly after the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and go to the campus for further study.
University life has broadened Qi Guangpu's horizons, and from the experience of a world champion and Olympic champion around him, Qi Guangpu has rekindled his fighting spirit and plans to return to the field. Just before his comeback, the birth of his daughter made him more deeply aware of the meaning of the word "responsibility".
For the Beijing Winter Olympics, Qi Guangpu returned.
After all, he is already a veteran, after all, he has been gone for a year, although at the End of 2019 World Cup sub-station China Lotus Mountain Station Competition, Qi Guangpu won the championship of the individual event, but perhaps he himself did not think that this was also the last gold medal he won in the World Cup before the Beijing Winter Olympics. Of course, this is also related to the fact that the epidemic has caused him to miss a season of major competitions, but Qi Guangpu also admitted that his state in the 2021-2022 season is really not good.
Even so, after standing on the Beijing Winter Olympics, Qi Guangpu still showed the strength and responsibility that a veteran should have.
On February 10, the Beijing Winter Olympics freestyle skiing aerial skills event ushered in the first gold - mixed team final. Three veterans of the Chinese team played. This jump, qi Guangpu, who finally appeared, showed a big heart. He withstood the pressure and completed the 4.525 difficulty move to help the team advance to the final battle with the first place. It's just a pity that Jia Zongyang made a mistake in the decisive battle, although Qi Guangpu jumped out of a high score of 122.17 points, but they still won the historic silver medal with a gap of 14 points.
This is Qi Guangpu's first stop on the podium of the Winter Olympics, but for him, it is full of regrets. After the game, in fact, there were many doubts about why Qi Guangpu did not fight the 5.0 action. Many people who pay attention to the project believe that Qi Guangpu has not skipped this difficult action for a long time.
However, through the mixed team competition, it is not difficult to see that if the men's individual event does not reach the 5.0 action, it is basically impossible to win gold. And it is.
In the final on the evening of the 17th, Qi Guangpu and Jia Zongyang advanced to the first and second in the preliminary round, and in the first round of the small final, they both ranked in the top six. However, in the second round, Russian Player Broff took the lead in completing the 5.0 difficulty action and scored a high score of 129 points, forcing Jia Zongyang to a desperate situation.
Landing mistakes, Jia Zongyang did not qualify for the finals, Qi Guangpu will fight alone, and China's hope of winning gold has changed from 1/3 to 1/6. Before the final showdown, the two old friends who had fought side by side for four Winter Olympics encouraged each other, Qi Guangpu comforted his teammates, and Jia Zongyang helped him cheer up.
In the final showdown, five of the six people chose a difficulty of 5.0, and Qi Guangpu was one of them. When he stood on the starting platform, the big screen on the field gave a display of the difficulty factor of 5.0, and the whole audience was boiling with blood.
From the silence of the whole audience that began to slide, to the explosion of cheers after the smooth landing, Qi Guangpu reproduced the true color of the "King of Difficulty". Although he felt that his aerial movements were still somewhat imperfect after the game, it was no longer important, and in this "5.0 era", Qi Guangpu was still king.
After the game, Qi Guangpu said that he withstood the pressure and did not live up to everyone's expectations, nor did he live up to the strength given to him by Jia Zongyang. This gold medal belongs to him and Jia Zongyang, and even more belongs to the Chinese team.
After winning the championship, Qi Guangpu did not seem to be particularly excited, and when the reporter asked him why he did not cry, Qi Guangpu said that you did not see it. Indeed, what outsiders can't see is not only tears, Qi Guangpu's perseverance in the fourth Winter Olympics, those injuries, the struggle in his heart, and the courage to impact the highest difficulty, these are all things that only Qi Guangpu himself can appreciate.
But in any case, at the moment when Qi Guangpu won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics, what we can see is his joy and excitement, and since then Qi Guangpu's titles have not only been "King of Difficulty", but also "Winter Olympic Champion" and "Grand Slam Player".
Return and be king! Congratulations to Qi Guangpu.
【Source: Sports Weekly】