The 14th National Winter Games opened today in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and four gold medals were awarded in the snowboard halfpipe competition in the Zhalantun Division. In the open group competition with many famous players, the veterans are especially stable, and there are many newcomers. Cai Xuetong, Liu Jiayu and Zhang Yiwei and other "30+" veterans all stood on the podium, winning the women's champion, runner-up and men's runner-up respectively, the men's championship was won by 21-year-old Wang Ziyang, and the two bronze medalists Qiu Leng and Gu Ao are both post-95.
This gold medal is a milestone for me. Competing in the National Winter Games for the fourth time, Cai Xuetong won her first individual championship in the National Winter Games. As a Chinese women's snowboarder, the 31-year-old has also participated in the Winter Olympics four times, but she has rubbed shoulders with medals again and again, won three world championships, and won the crystal ball on behalf of the World Cup championship seven times, making her a star player in the snowboard World Championships and the World Cup.
She remembers that ten years ago, she went to Zhalantun to compete and train, "the feeling of being so cold that she couldn't train", and this time not only the sky was clear and windless, from the venue conditions to the intensity of the competition, it showed a "hot" change in skiing, "In recent years, many outstanding young players have emerged, they have hard work, and their movements are becoming more and more mature, including women, and we have a lot of athletes who can come out in the future." ”
Liu Jiayu, also from the Heilongjiang team, won the gold medal in the 13th Winter event, and at PyeongChang 2018, she won a silver medal for China's snowboarding. Today, at the age of 32, she still has an outstanding performance in the field, in her opinion, the changes in China's Winter Games are all-round, the most prominent point is to compete with more and more post-00 players, in this final there is known as the "future star of Chinese snowboarding" 12-year-old Zhou Yizhu, although she finally ranked fifth, but she showed freedom and confidence in the field is impressive. In this regard, Liu Jiayu said, "When there are more and more children like Zhou Yizhu on the ski slopes, no matter what model is cultivated, as long as someone likes and insists, it means that our snowboard is developing, and I hope that in the Milan Winter Olympics and even further Winter Olympics, we can continue to maintain the progress of Chinese snowboarding." ”
Both the open and the youth are very strong, and many of the local youth children are fighting against us, so I am very optimistic about the prospects of the Milan Winter Olympics. The 32-year-old World Cup champion Zhang Yiwei is competing in the Winter Games for the first time in 12 years, and although he has rarely appeared in recent years, a silver medal still proves that he maintains a high level of competition. Although he was overtaken by his Beijing teammate Wang Ziyang, who was 11 years younger than him, at the last moment and missed the gold medal, Zhang Yiwei was quickly relieved, "In this event, I was the first batch, and now I can compete with such a young player, and I have been successful to stand here again." ”
In fact, when he was 10 years old, I took him in the team and I knew that he was the best player after me and that he would have a good future. Zhang Yiwei revealed that he and Wang Ziyang were "master and apprentice". And Wang Ziyang also admitted frankly that Zhang Yiwei's existence has always urged him to keep improving. Two years ago at the Beijing Winter Olympics, Wang Ziyang, who was not yet 20 years old, only finished 21st in the men's snowboard halfpipe event, "The regret of the Winter Olympics is relatively big, I have been training hard in the past two years, and I am also eager to prove myself in this Winter Games, I hope this championship can give me a good start." Wang Ziyang said that he still has two competitions in this competition, and he is looking forward to winning his second gold.
In the snowboard halfpipe youth competition, Liaoning team athlete Ren Chongshuo won the men's championship, and Hebei team athlete Liu Yibo won the women's championship.
*: China Youth Daily client).