Source: China Youth Daily
In the just-concluded freestyle skiing women's U-shaped field skill final, "Frog Princess" Gu Ailing constantly refreshed high scores, showed absolute strength to win the championship, and ended her first Winter Olympics with two gold and one silver. At the age of 19, she also became the first athlete to win medals in all three different freestyle skiing events at the Winter Olympics.
Under the pressure of the mistakes in the last round, Zhang Kexin just appeared in the third round of the competition to come up with a difficult action, the result was a mistake, fell on the track, after the medical staff entered the treatment, Zhang Kexin slid away from the track, hoping that Zhang Kexin would be unhindered.
In this Winter Olympics, the Chinese team achieved a full quota of 4 participants in the women's U-shaped venue skill project, and the players were all "post-00s". In addition to Gu Ailing's riding in the dust, the overall strength of the team also has the strength to compete with the world's high-level players. Zhang Kexin finished 9th in the event at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, 8th at the 2019 World Championships and 4th in this season's World Cup. Li Fanghui, who was born in 2003, competed with Gu Ailing in the U-shaped field skills at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics and won a silver medal.
In yesterday's qualifiers, in addition to Wu Meng's mistakes and being eliminated, Zhang Kexin and Li Fanghui both successfully advanced. Gu Ailing also paid attention to the performance of his Chinese teammates, "My teammates performed very well. Li Fanghui is young and very talented, and Zhang Kexin is very powerful and very motivating to me. I am also learning from Zhang Kexin, she has more experience than a Winter Olympics, more experience than me, and I hope to learn from her. She admits that she can make rapid progress in a limited time, and the coaches who give her help and strength are coaches, mothers, and more importantly, "other athletes", "I am a person who is very willing to learn, I have learned a lot from other players, I will observe, if they do well, I will learn, if they make mistakes, mistakes, I will remind myself to avoid making the same mistakes." There are also psychological adjustments, some people have been doing well, they can perform well in big and small events, I will pay attention to the way they adjust themselves, and see how they deal with pressure. All of this helped me grow. ”
Although Gu Ailing is participating in the Winter Olympics for the first time, she is the busiest athlete to participate in the three events of freestyle ski jumping, slope obstacle course and U-shaped track skills, "and she is the only player (freestyle skiing) to reach the final of all three events." After easily entering the freestyle ski women's U-shaped track skills final with the first place, Gu Ailing admitted frankly, "From the opening ceremony to today, I have not had a day off. ”
Gu Ailing's winter Olympic debut appeared on the Beijing Shougang Ski Jump, as one of the very few female athletes who has the ability to participate in 3 freestyle skiing events at the same time, the big jump is the project she has the shortest contact time and is not good at. But in the case of ranking third in the first two rounds, she challenged the ultra-difficult movement of the deflection rotation body for two weeks that had never been tried before, and completed it wonderfully, scoring a high score of 94.50 and winning the championship in one fell swoop.
This jump made Gu Ailing very excited, but also consumed a lot of energy, "After all, it is the Olympic Games, it is not so easy to create history." Gu Ailing admitted that this is one of the reasons why she "did not enter the state" in the slope obstacle course competition. In the second round of the final, she made a serious mistake and fell in the snow, but in the third round, she adjusted her mentality to complete the counterattack.
"Slope obstacle skills and U-shaped venues have high requirements for the stability of athletes, and once they make mistakes, they can't do it later, and the athletes' movement proficiency and psychological state have a greater impact on the performance of these two." Wang Yucheng, a ski technical expert and an excellent skier, told the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network that Gu Ailing had previously focused on U-shaped venues and slope obstacles, but then used a short period of time to achieve good results on the big jump platform, "pushing his limit very high", which is enough to show that his physical quality, psychological quality and technical mastery are at a high level, "whether it is a single play like a big jump, or a continuous and stable play like a U-shaped pool, And in a continuous process like the slope obstacle that is both smooth and requires constant small explosions, she can do it perfectly, calling it genius. ”
In the view of freestyle ski referee Yang Jinrong (pseudonym), there is an interaction between the projects, and the biggest test for athletes is the energy and ability to toss between projects, which has long been accustomed to Gu Ailing, who has a variety of hobbies and adapts to multiple identity changes since childhood, "This is the biggest difference between her and other skaters." ”
In this regard, Gu Ailing also mentioned after the game that he experienced basketball, football, cross-country running, surfing and other sports since he was a child, "although he was not professional enough, he laid the foundation for me and gave me a better athletic ability, especially I always insisted on running, even if I came to China during the quarantine period, I also insisted on brushing half a horse once a week." Genius also needs daily accumulation, Gu Ailing mentioned many times, "my talent accounts for only 0.1%. ”
"Over the past year, Gu Ailing has made a lot of preparations for the big jump, and the project with a relatively low grasp is placed in the opening, and she has enough physical and psychological excitement to cope, which has a motivating effect on her to impact the gold medal." Yang Jinrong introduced that in the 3 projects in which Gu Ailing participated, the professionalism of U-shaped field skills was relatively more difficult, and the requirements for athletes to skate were higher, and this was Gu Ailing's strength, "Gu Ailing practiced on the big jump platform for more than a year to unlock 1620, largely thanks to her solid foundation in the U pool. ”
In the freestyle ski women's U-shaped track skill event, Gu Ailing won gold medals at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games and last year's World Championships, and won four World Cups this season, ranking first in the world, and is regarded as the biggest favorite to win the project at this Winter Olympics.
However, although it is the project with the greatest grasp of winning gold, since moving to Zhangjiakou Division, Gu Ailing attaches great importance to the preparation of U-shaped venue skills. After the end of the slope obstacle course qualification, after the mixed interview area, she only answered "I eat a leek box" and hurried to the U-shaped field to train, even after winning the silver medal in a thrilling way, she also ate a bun while being interviewed, in order to save time to rush to the U-shaped field to train, she constantly stressed: "The Olympic Games are not over, my training time is less than 50% compared to others, I have to go right away." ”
"All my decisions are made by myself, every day I take the initiative to train, no one ever asks me, because my original intention of skiing is because of love, I understand that this is my skiing (career)." Gu Ailing is very clear about his thoughts, "I don't want to be called just a U-shaped track runner or a steeplechase runner, I want to be an 'all-round skier'. In an interview with Forbes magazine, she once said of the three events she participated in, "They are all related to each other, and there are not many players participating in the U-shaped track and slope obstacle courses at the same time, which makes my movements more unique." ”
At the 2020 Lausanne Winter Youth Olympics, Gu Ailing fought in the third line for the first time in a large competition, winning two golds and a silver slope obstacle in the big jump platform, U-shaped field, and since then, continuous axis combat and a number of doubles have almost become Gu Ailing's "prescribed actions". When it came to the Beijing Winter Olympics, when talking about her 3 projects again, she said, "Participating in 3 projects makes it easier for me, because I have 3 opportunities to achieve my goals." ”
Produced by China Youth Daily and China Youth Network