Aerial freestylers on cloud 9 after Harbin heroics

Videos
Photos

By Lei Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-25 11:11

HAIRBIN, Heilongjiang province: China's freestyle aerials skiers plan on turning their newly proven supremacy at the sport into Olympic gold medals at the Vancouver Winter Games next year after sweeping all three titles on offer at the ongoing 24th Harbin Winter Universiade.

China's Li Nina competes during the freestyle aerials skiing mixed event at the 24th World Universiade in Harbin yesterday. Li, the reigning world champion, led the Chinese team to win the gold ahead of Belarus and Russia. Yang Shizhong

"Our goal is to win gold medals at the Vancouver Games. All the skiers including me will strive toward that end," said Li Nina, the reigning world champion and 2006 Turin Winter Olympics silver medalist who led a young team to shine in Harbin.

Li is the only Chinese Olympian to feature at Yabuli Ski Resort. But her younger teammates were not to be outdone, with the team working to collect all the medals in the women's and men's individual events as well as gold in the mixed team event yesterday.

Li narrowly defeated teammate Cheng Shuang to win the women's event while a younger Chinese skier, Dai Shuangfei, came in third. On the men's side, 18-year-old Jia Zongyang was first, followed by Liu Zhongqing and Jiang Wuchao. Jiang saw off Turin Winter Olympic bronze medalist Vladimir Lebedev of Russia to claim a medal at his maiden international championship.

Li and Jia also helped the hosts to win the mixed team event ahead of Belarus and Russia yesterday. Chinese officials hope this experience and newfound confidence stands them in good stead for future Olympic success.

"Although the competitive level of the Winter Universiade is not that high, it will help those young skiers to feel the atmosphere of international events and get ready for the Winter Olympics next year," said Ren Hongguo, deputy chef-de-mission of the Chinese delegation in Harbin.

"Most of our skiers have no Olympic experience, so competing at big tournaments like this gives them a valuable opportunity to soak up the atmosphere," Ren said.

At Turin 2006, China collected its first-ever Winter Olympic gold medal in a snow event by freestyle men's aerials skier Han Xiaopeng. Li narrowly missed out on the women's gold due to the relatively low difficulty level of her jumps.

The team were quick to reverse this trend yesterday as they cruised to a win at the Universiade without bothering to deploy their most difficult jumps, which they claim to be saving for the runner-up to the Olympics.

"I still have to improve both my degree of difficulty and consistency in landing in order to do better at international competitions," said Li.

She compared her current level to Han at the Turin Olympics and said she also plans on topping the podium next winter.

Absent from the Universiade with an ankle injury, Han will not return to competition until the World Championships next month.

"Our male skiers have never been able to match the world's best in terms of skill and difficulty, and they have been inconsistent in the past, but we have seen a lot of improvement at this event," said Zhao Yinggang, director of China's Winter Sports Administrative Center.

In other snow events yesterday, Artem Gusev won his second gold in a row at the Universiade after his victory in the men's 10km-sprint biathlon race. Ukraine's Oleg Berezhnoy and Jaroslav Soukup of Czech Republic took the silver and bronze respectively in 25:46.5 and 26:11.9.

Gusev's compatriot Nadezhda Chastina took the crown in the women's 7.5km-sprint.

Japan's Sato Koichiro lifted the Nordic combined title by notching a total of 227.7 points from the 10km cross-country race and 90m ski jump. Sato's teammate Nagai Takehiro was relegated to second place by 2.8 points while Petr Kutal from Czech Republic (223.4) took the final podium spot.

On the rink, Chinese duo Dong Feifei and Dai Chunyan posted a one-two finish in the women's speed skating 5,000m to hand the hosts another silver and their 13th gold medal of the Games.