November 4,
There are 92 days left before the Beijing Winter Olympics.
After more than 2,000 days and nights of preparation, the Beijing Winter Olympics have now entered the "100-day sprint" stage. From the 2008 Summer Olympics to the 2022 Winter Olympics, what kind of surprises will Beijing, the "city of the Two Olympics", bring to the world?
The world is looking forward to answers.
As a Chinese, we hope that Chinese ice and snow athletes can compete for gold and silver at this Winter Olympics and realize their desire to raise the national flag and play the national anthem.
But looking back at the reality, due to historical reasons, China's winter Olympic project started late, the foundation is thin, the reserve of talents is small, compared with the extraordinary performance of the Summer Olympic Games, the strength of the Chinese Winter Olympic Corps compared with developed countries, there is still a big gap, some teams have even just been formed, China still has a long way to go in ice and snow sports.
But in the ski arena, there is such a young girl, at the age of being called "child", she uses actions to make the world feel the strength from teenagers, so that China sees the hope of ice and snow sports, she is Gu Ailing.
"Someone else's child", China's Gu Ailing
Gu Ailing was born in 2003 in San Francisco, USA. His father was a pure American, and his mother, Gu Yan, was an authentic Beijinger. The fate between Gu Ailing and skiing also begins when she was 3 years old, when Gu Ailing was taken to the ski resort by her mother and fell in love with this sport
At the age of eight, Gu Ailing joined the professional ski team to start systematically learning freestyle skiing, with extraordinary talent, she won the ski championship of the National Junior Group the following year, and at the age of 15, she has won more than 50 gold medals, including the honor of world champion, which can be described as a talented girl.
Gu Ailing, who grew up in the United States, often calls herself a Chinese girl. Every holiday, she travels back to China with her mother. Ancient civilization, beautiful city, let Gu Airing ling linger, proud. In the words of Gu Ailing's mother, although her daughter grew up in the United States, she is also a Chinese child and a Beijing girl.
(Note: Gu Ailing is in Beijing)
Influenced by traditional Chinese culture since childhood, she has always had a dream, that is, to join the Chinese national team and compete in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
"Chinese freestyle skier Gu Ailing reports"
In order to represent China in the Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing must first stand on the stage of the World Series and prove his strength.
Looking north from the Great Wall of Beijing, which Gu Ailing is most familiar with, is the snow country of Saibei - Chongli. As one of the venues of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, this former loess town is rapidly rising to become the world's most eye-catching ski center.
2018-2019 FIS freestyle skiing and snowboarding kicked off here. For Gu Ailing, who is eager to join the Chinese training team, the world-class competition is undoubtedly a great opportunity to prove herself.
To this end, she came from San Francisco to compete. Unfamiliar environments, different snow quality, will bring potential risks. An accidental fall during Gu Ailing's pre-match adaptation training caused a concussion.
Ailing, who lost the chance to play, was so sad that her coach, Prossell, showed her a video and told her that if you want to be an athlete, you will have different forms of injuries. Competitive sports is a process, if you care too much about the result, that result often does not come, if you pay attention to the process, the result will eventually come.
More than a month later, Ailing returned to the field to compete in the World Cup steeplechase in France, where she lost to Pyeongchang Olympic champion Heflin with a slight margin of 0.49 points and won the silver medal. In this regard, Ailing is obviously not satisfied.
Two weeks later, in the World Cup in Italy, Ailing played well and won the first World Cup gold medal in the women's doubleboard freestyle ski slope obstacle course. Ai Ling, who is gradually in a better situation, has made continuous breakthroughs in the World Cup arena and finally successfully reached the top of the INTERNATIONAL Snow Federation standings, which paved the way for her to join the Chinese national training team.
On June 8, 2019, 15-year-old Gu Ailing announced through his personal Weibo account "Frog Princess Ailing" that he had officially changed from American nationality to Chinese nationality, and posted "Chinese freestyle skier Gu Ailing reports". According to the official website of the International Ski Federation, in June 2019, Gu Ailing's registered nationality in fis has been changed from the United States to China.
(Note: Gu Ailing announced on social platforms that she is a Chinese athlete)
The "busiest" academic athlete
As a full-time high school student in the United States, Gu Ailing had to return to the United States to continue her studies during the offseason.
In addition to the heavy academic workload, the scattered training alone and the lack of systematic guidance from professional coaches are also major dilemmas facing Ailing.
She has always had the desire to be the "best", not to experience the thrill of crushing others, but to see where her limits are and to be the best person she can be.
So to achieve being the "best" on the field, she faces a difficult choice. "None of this stuff can be known, it's already happening, so you can only think about what to do next." After much deliberation, she made the bold decision to abandon her full-time high school program and complete her high school studies by self-study.
However, the study and training have never been reconciled, in order to fully prepare for the Winter Olympics, Ailing decided to complete the high school course a year ahead of schedule, so she came to Beijing to participate in various cram classes to prepare for the early application for university.
(Note: Gu Ailing takes a class in Beijing)
And just like her performance in the snow field, in the examination room, she also pursues the best. After knowing her academic performance, you can't even easily judge which field she is doing better in, academics and "snow industry".
Last December, she announced on Weibo that she had been accepted to Stanford University. After graduating from high school early, she scored an excellent score of 1580 on the SAT test with a score of 1600.
According to her, learning while skiing is difficult for anyone. So first put 100% of your energy into learning, solve the learning things, and then put 100% of your energy into learning, so that both things can be handled well.
The future is poised to be expected
Reasonable planning has given Gu Ailing more opportunities for systematic training, and her physical fitness and skiing skills have been rapidly improved, and she is looking forward to a new challenge.
On January 9, 2020, the third Winter Youth Olympic Games were held in Lausanne, Switzerland. Because it has the same standards and specifications as the Winter Olympics, this can be counted as a mock exam before the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The first match day was gu Ailing's main event, the freestyle double-board slope obstacle course, and she was runner-up with a slight margin of 0.5 points.
The next competition is a freestyle double board U-shaped field competition. With a lead in the first round, she now sends the pressure to her opponents with a more perfect performance. On a world-class stage, the perfect freestyle ski exhibition, in the end, Gu Ailing won the gold medal with an absolute advantage of 93 points.
(Note: Gu Ailing is playing a freestyle double-board U-shaped field competition)
In the race of slope obstacles and U-shaped venues, Ailing played steadily to win a gold and a silver, and her real challenge was the two-board freestyle big jumping platform competition.
The competition of the big jump platform is that the athletes slide down the slope to the jump platform, rely on inertia at the end of the jump platform, and perform various aerial stunts such as flips and slaloms.
The big jump is difficult, the risk is high, it requires athletes to train for a long time and solid basic skills, and China's freestyle ski women's double board big jump project is almost 0 starting point, in order to achieve the goal of the Chinese team in the 2022 Winter Olympics, someone is needed to fill the gap in this competition, and in the end this difficult task fell on the shoulders of Gu Ailing. As a result, Ailing became the only athlete in the world to shoulder three events in the women's doubleboard freestyle skiing field.
(Note: Gu Ailing is playing a two-board freestyle big jumping competition)
After the failure of the first jump, Gu Ailing has no way to retreat, she is determined to let go, the second jump sweeps away the haze of the first round of mistakes, 89.75 points. Burdened with the pressure of the first round, Ailing adjusted its mentality in time and finally won the championship with 171.25 points.
Gu Ailing showed the super strength of young athletes, winning 2 gold and 1 silver, which became the biggest surprise of the Chinese team. From a little girl who is afraid of injury to a leader in Chinese freestyle skiing, the WinterGreen Olympics have witnessed Gu Ailing's king's road of constantly challenging the limits of life.
Dance on the snow and walk on the pedals
From the first time he entered the snow field to now becoming a professional athlete, the doubts thrown at Gu Ailing by the world around him have not stopped.
Freestyle skiing is an extremely ornamental and dangerous extreme sport, and it is precisely for this reason that people will always feel that women's freestyle skiing is not as ornamental as men's, or that girls are not suitable for this sport.
Gu Ailing returned to the land of China and represented China in major events, hoping to spread the concept of skiing in his hometown through himself.
"It's not that women are not suitable for extreme sports, but because women don't participate enough, they can't see similar people in life, and everyone will find it difficult."
"It's really inspiring to see women represent and girls do the same."
This is what she hopes to bring to young girls in China and around the world.
Everyone praises her as a gifted ski girl, but behind the endless praise, there are endless injuries. Missing the World Cup due to a shoulder injury, falling into a concussion while adapting to the field, and having a fractured thumb ligament in her back hand while training, she was able to finish the game well even without a cane.
Talent is a gift from Heaven, and behind the genius girl is 99% of the effort.
The father can still fear the future, and the husband can not be young. Gu Ailing used her strength to turn the doubts around her into applause, as shown in the photo she captioned when she informed the public of her injury, when she jumped high, only the blue sky and snow could stay with her in one picture.