Team China extended its record medal haul at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Wednesday after freestyle skier Qi Guangpu secured the host delegation's seventh gold at his fourth Games. Qi Guangpu, also a four-time Olympian at the age of 31, claimed the men's aerials gold with a near-perfect jump of back double full-full-double full which boasts of a difficulty degree of 5.000, the highest in the world so far.
A two-time world champion and winner of 13 World Cup titles, aerial specialist Qi finally won the coveted medal by landing perhaps the biggest jump of his career in the final's medal round to win an individual gold in the daredevils' event, which involves skiers launching themselves off a steep jump to perform multi-flip stunts before trying to land cleanly on a ramp.
The 31-year-old native of Xuzhou city in Jiangsu province was the only skier on Wednesday night who attempted the super-difficult trick to land cleanly in the gut-wrenching knockout format, which saw half of the 12 finalists eliminated following the first two runs before the final six battled it out in the medal round with a third run.
The gold was Qi's second medal following a silver he won with teammates Xu Mengtao and Jia Zongyang in the mixed team final on Feb 10, and the host delegation's 13th medal at Beijing 2022. China ranked fourth on the Games medal rankings with seven gold, four silver and two bronze by the end of Wednesday's competitions.
Entering the medal round with confidence built upon two clean qualification jumps, Qi overcame his nerves to perform a quintuple-twisting triple back flip in a neat fashion, which got him the top score of 129 points.
In his dream to be an Olympic champion, Qi has shifted his gear from trampoline to free ski aerials around the age of 10. He has been keeping a low profile until Wednesday's shocking performance at the Genting Snow Park venue.
China, one of the powerhouses in the aerials, marked a huge milestone in its Olympic history and engraved the keyword "veteran", which is full of efforts, passions and injuries.
Freestyle skiing aerials became an official event of the Winter Olympic Games in 1994, several teenagers formed the first Chinese national team and started training from scratch in the same year.
