China's solid foundations building golden generation

China's freestyle skiers and snowboarders are already reaping the benefits of the nation's ahead-of-schedule preparations for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Weeks of training on the Olympic halfpipe course, completed last year, at Games co-host Genting Resort, paid off on Friday for Cai Xuetong, who produced a dazzling final run to win China's first snowboarding gold medal of this season's World Cup with a score of 88.75 points.

Swiss rider Verena Rohere (85.25) and Kurumi Imai (82.25) of Japan finished second and third respectively.