Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 2 (Reporter Li Jia) 15-year-old Sichuan girl Yang Siqi has made history by qualifying for the Paris Olympics at the 2024 World Surfing Games held in Puerto Rico on the 1st local time, and will become the first player to represent the Chinese team in the Olympic surfing competition.
Yang Siqi previously participated in the 2023 World Surfing Games in El Salvador, when she reached the fifth round of the repechage, ranking 31st out of more than 130 women, and failed to qualify for the Paris Olympics. But a year later in Puerto Rico, she finished with 11He scored 83 points and qualified for the Olympics in one fell swoop. The competition is not over yet, Yang Siqi will also participate in the seventh round of the repechage, and the final position has not yet been determined.
Yang Siqi said: "At that time, I was ranked first in the finisher, but I didn't expect to qualify for the Olympic Games! We were all ready to go, and the staff told us to wait, but I didn't expect to get the qualification at the time, and when I was told that I got the qualification, I was so excited, I felt my hands were shaking! Because of the goal I set in 2022, I achieved it! ”
I didn't expect to qualify until the sixth round of the repechage, so I just wanted to relax and go to the next round and play my best. Today's waves are particularly difficult to rush, the water is particularly large, and it is also physically demanding underneath. She said.
The 2024 World Surfing Games is the last chance for Chinese teenagers to qualify for the Paris Olympics, and Yang Siqi has finally realized her dream after passing four rounds of the main event and one round of the repechage.
Yang Siqi is a strength player, and the coach commented that she has a good sense of water, courage, comprehensive and explosive skills, and a large range of movements. She finished 29th at the 2022 World Surfing Games, the best result achieved by the Chinese surfing team in this event since its inception in 2018. At the last World Surfing Games, although she did not qualify for the Olympics, Yang Siqi's performance attracted a lot of foreign media attention, and the International Surfing Association said on its official website that the 14-year-old "performance was eye-catching and improved significantly". She and her teammates also won the 2023 Asian Surfing Championships Aloha Cup relay race against Japan.
The Chinese surfing team was established in 2018, although surfing was only listed as an official competition in the Tokyo Olympics, but the international popularity and professionalism level is very high, and there has always been a big gap between the fledgling Chinese team and the world's high level, especially men's surfing, the difficulty of the action is very high. Due to the domestic wave conditions that cannot meet the training needs, the Chinese team has been striving to train abroad in recent years, and has trained abroad for 5 months in 2022 and 2023. (ENDS).