In the four Winter Olympics, Qi Guangpu finally stood on the top podium of the Olympic Games in his dreams.
On the evening of the 16th, in the Beijing Winter Olympics freestyle skiing men's aerial skills final, Qi Guangpu won the gold medal with a set of near-perfect moves.
From Vancouver to Beijing, the 12-year wait played the strongest sound this night.
01 The king of aerial skills
Unlike most of China's famous ice and snow players from the three eastern provinces, Qi Guangpu was born in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, and entered a sports school for training at the age of four.
Get up at 5 o'clock every day, go to school after training until 7 o'clock; resume training after school at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and go home at 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening... This schedule is a daily routine that Qi Guangpu is familiar with as a child.
In the face of high-intensity training, the young Qi Guangpu showed great self-discipline.
Every plan the coach has laid out, he can do well.
Hard work pays off.
In 2000, 9-year-old Qi Guangpu was selected to the Changchun Freestyle Skiing Aerial Skills Team and began to specialize in freestyle skiing aerial skills training.
In the years since then, Qi Guangpu has only spent the Spring Festival at home once.
Even in severe cold weather, he continued to train every day.
It was the solid training that laid the foundation for Qi Guangpu's fame in the first battle.
The picture shows Qi Guangpu in the game.
In the 2013 Freestyle Skiing World Championships men's aerial skills competition, Qi Guangpu won the championship with 138 points, becoming the first athlete in the world to complete a 1,800-degree backward tumbling in three cycles.
His name began to be known by more people.
In the 2014-15 season, the International Snow Federation once commented on Qi Guangpu, "If you have questioned who is the current king of aerial skills, then Qi Guangpu can put an end to this problem."
For Qi Guangpu, this evaluation is not an exaggeration.
Since Qi Guangpu participated in the freestyle skiing World Cup for the first time in 2009, including the team competition, he has won countless gold medals.
Proud results come from hard work.
Qi Guangpu's success is no accident.
Qi Guangpu celebrates after the freestyle skiing aerial skills mixed team final at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics on February 10.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Tomita
02 The difficult road to the Winter Olympics
Qi Guangpu is known for his high technical difficulty and is known as the "Difficulty King". In the game, this is his magic weapon to defeat powerful enemies.
However, in this risky project, increasing the difficulty means more attempts in training and competition, and more possibility of injury.
When participating in the competition in Moscow in 2009, Qi Guangpu suffered a concussion, which made him deeply realize the danger of the project.
But in the game, he will still take off confidently and move around.
On February 17, 2014 local time, Qi Guangpu ranked fourth in the men's freestyle skiing aerial skills competition at the Sochi Winter Olympics.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liu Guanguan
After winning the World Cup and World Championships early, Qi Guangpu is only one Winter Olympics gold medal away from the Grand Slam.
However, this gold medal made Qi Guangpu wait for more than ten years.
In the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Qi Guangpu finished his first Winter Olympics with a seventh place.
At the Sochi Winter Olympics 4 years later, Qi Guangpu took the "world's most difficult" action to the arena, but made a mistake and finally ranked fourth.
At the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Qi Guangpu, who ranked first in the first round of the final, made a mistake when he landed in the second round and missed the top 6.
The three Olympic Games have missed the podium, and Qi Guangpu was unwilling to see such a result.
As a pathfinder trying "the world's first difficulty", he can only explore a little bit without the experience of his predecessors.
Qi Guangpu repeatedly watched the video of the game, both his own and his opponents.
Learn from each other's strengths and strive for perfection, this is what he has put forward to himself.
On the evening of February 18, 2018, in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Qi Guangpu ranked seventh in the second round and missed the medal.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Cui Nan
After the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Qi Guangpu temporarily withdrew from the national team and returned to campus to continue his studies.
"Before my life track was only training, this opportunity gave me a brief glimpse of the scenery on the student track, which is also a kind of self-adjustment." He once described campus life in this way.
But the love in his heart made Qi Guangpu return to his beloved team and continue to fight.
03 From "little general" to "old man"
In Beijing in 2022, Qi Guangpu will once again stand on the Winter Olympics.
He has grown from a "Chinese teenager" when he first participated in the competition to a "four dynasties veteran".
Ten years in a flash.
Qi Guangpu's enlightenment coach once said that he has been practicing for more than 20 years, and it is not easy to persist until now.
On March 9, 2017, the freestyle skiing and snowboard world championships were held in Sierra Nevada, Spain. The picture shows Qi Guangpu training.
On the evening of February 10, at the Zhangjiakou Genting Ski Park, the Beijing Winter Olympics freestyle skiing aerial skills mixed team final came to an end. The Chinese team consisting of Xu Mengtao, Jia Zongyang and Qi Guangpu won the silver medal with 324.22 points.
During the game, Jia Zongyang, the second player of the Chinese team, made a mistake when he finished the action and landed.
Facing huge pressure, Qi Guangpu, the last player to play, helped the Chinese team successfully stand on the podium with a perfect set of moves.
Data map: The three people embrace the picture.
When all the dust settled, the three veterans who had passed their thirties hugged each other tightly.
Although this night was not a dream come true, but they have given everything.
This is a silver medal with temperature, and its warmth reaches people's hearts.
After that, the experienced Qi Guangpu quickly adjusted his state and prepared for the single game.
In the freestyle skiing men's aerial skills qualifying competition on the evening of the 15th, Qi Guangpu successfully advanced to the final with a score of 127.88, which was the highest score among all the competitors that day.
The picture shows Qi Guangpu in the game.
It can be seen that Qi Guangpu wants to jump and take the gold medal "hanging" at the top into his arms.
This time, his dream finally came true.
Those who succumb to the worst will believe, and those who have been subdued for a long time will be determined in flight.
The veteran is not old, and his ambition is still alive.
(Author Liu Xingchen Hou Qianchen)