On February 19, the Beijing Winter Olympics freestyle skiing men's U-shaped track skills final came to an end, in which New Zealand's Nico Portios won the championship with 93.00 points, the American athlete, Sochi and Pyeongchang Winter Olympic champion David Wise finished second with 90.75 points, and the American Alex Ferreira won the bronze.
The Freestyle Ski Men's U-Shaped Track Skills Qualifier was held on the 17th, when a total of 23 players participated, and the top 12 players reached the final. Among them, four of the 23 players were Chinese players, namely Mao Bingqiang, Wang Haizhuo, Sun Jingbo and He Binghan, but unfortunately they did not reach the final.
The freestyle ski U-shaped track skill competition was first established at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and the two-time Winter Olympic champion was won by American David Wise. Born in 1990, Wise once again came to the Beijing Winter Olympics, eager to complete the history of three consecutive championships.
But in yesterday's final, Pyeongchang Winter Olympics bronze medalist Nico Portios scored a super high 93.00 points in the first skate, and Wise did not hesitate to let go, and the first skate also scored 90.75 points. Wise tried to increase the difficulty of the move in the next two slides to achieve overtaking, but all made mistakes and eventually won the silver medal. Portios also increased the difficulty of the last two skates, hoping to create a higher score, but also all of them made mistakes, and he finally won the championship with 93.00 points in the first skate. It must be noted that chongli blew a strong wind during the competition, which affected the players' play to a certain extent.
After the game, the staff of the New Zealand delegation at the scene of the competition once danced a Maori war dance, which attracted attention. The gold medal was the second Gold Medal won by the New Zealand team at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
At the age of 20 years and 88 days, Portios became the youngest champion in the history of the Winter Olympics. After the game, Portios said: "Honestly I have a hard time describing how I felt after winning the championship, in short, I am so happy, and I still can't believe it, winning the championship is the dream of all athletes. It was very cold today and the wind was very strong, and I did my best. I think the U-shaped track project is the skier's 'canvas' where we can express ourselves on it, which is our art form. ”
Despite the gold medal, two-time Winter Olympic gold medalist Wise became the oldest medalist in the event in the history of the Winter Olympics at the age of 31 years and 234 days. Wise also said after the game: "Today Portios performed very well, I was deeply impressed, despite the wind, he did what he wanted to do, and I still appropriately reduced the difficulty of the action on this windy day. Although the results of the last Winter Olympics are different, I am very proud to stand here with you. Portios won the championship, congratulations to him, in fact, it is not that Portios took the crown from me, I am more concerned about skiing itself. ”
Courtesy of Visual China Xinhua News Agency
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Source Client The Winter Olympics | Reporters Li Yuanfei, Chen Jiakun, and Deng Fangjia
Editor: Han Ye
Process Editor Tai Shaofeng