Chinese language girls’s freestyle skier Liu Mengting performs a trick through the ultimate spherical of FIS Snowboard and Freeski Large Air World Cup sequence’ Beijing leg on the Shougang Industrial Park on Saturday. （AN LINGJUN / FOR CHINA DAILY）
With back-to-back podium finishes bolstering her Olympic ambition, China’s rising freeskier Liu Mengting has landed herself on the hot-favorite record within the massive air self-discipline at her Winter Olympic debut in Italy.
Using on the momentum from her third-place end ultimately week’s season-opening World Cup occasion in Chongli, Hebei province, Liu, a freestyle skier specializing within the high-flying massive air self-discipline, stepped up her efforts to qualify for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Video games by profitable a silver medal on the Cup sequence’ leg cease in Beijing on Saturday.
Hurling down from the Shougang Large Air slope with poise, Liu landed her first two runs within the ultimate with top quality — stomping a left dub 1440 cindy to attain a discipline excessive 90.50 factors in her first bounce and a proper dub 1080 security to attain 81.75 factors in her second.
Chinese language girls’s freestyle skier Liu Mengting hoists her runner-up trophy after profitable a silver medal on the FIS Snowboard and Freeski Large Air World Cup sequence’ Beijing leg on the Shougang Industrial Park on Saturday. （AN LINGJUN / FOR CHINA DAILY）
The 21-year-old completed runner-up with a complete of 172.25 factors behind winner Anni Karava of Finland, who overtook Liu with two strong runs from her second and third makes an attempt, scoring a profitable complete of 175.50 factors.
Canada’s Naomi Urness rounded up the rostrum at third with 171.50 factors from her second and third runs. Eight girls had made it to the ultimate spherical, the place every of them took three runs with their two finest scores counted for the ultimate standing.
Liu’s silver end marked Chinese language athletes’ best-ever outcome at Shougang Large Air, a Beijing 2022 venue, on the FIS freeski World Cup sequence. Solely two-time Olympic champion Eileen Gu had achieved a greater outcome on the similar venue by profitable the massive air gold on the Beijing Winter Video games.
“To have the ability to obtain two podium finishes on the World Cup stage in a row and doing it each on residence snow was actually a giant honor for me,” mentioned Liu, whose earlier finest at Shougang was final yr’s sixth-place end within the west Beijing industrial park.
“I’m very pleased with my myself for reaching such constant outcomes, which will certainly encourage myself to push for higher outcomes as a fantastic confidence booster,” mentioned Liu, who received her first and solely World Cup massive air title in Klagenfurt, Austria, in January.
“There stays a protracted method to Milan any more. I’ve ready for the Olympics for a very long time. I imagine I nonetheless have room for enhancements and I’ll take one step at a time to raise myself for the Olympic aim. Hopefully, I can proceed snowboarding with the consistency that I’ve proven these two weeks.”
Within the males’s ultimate, Norway’s Ulrik Samnoey received gold with a complete of 184.00 factors, adopted by runner-up Luca Harrington of New Zealand (182.50 factors) and Austria’s bronze medalist Matej Svancer (180.00 factors).
The FIS freeski massive air World Cup sequence subsequent travels to Steamboat, Colorado for its penultimate cease of the four-leg season, which is able to function the third and ultimate Olympic qualification occasion for Milano-Cortina 2026.
After the Steamboat cease, which runs from Dec 11-13, skiers will take a monthlong break, earlier than studying who will ski on their method to the Olympics, when the Olympic Qualification Quota, based mostly on the rating of their World Cup factors, is revealed on Jan 19.
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