Xu Mengtao makes her dream come true with gold on home soil
Feb 14, 2022·Freestyle
An extraordinary showcase of women’s aerial skiing went down at the Genting Snow Park M & A venue on Monday, February 14, with the sky-high level of jumping throughout the day making for one of the most exciting competition in history of freestyle skiing. There, the veteran and freestyle role-model Xu Mengtao of China wrote history, while taking a spectacular win for the Olympic gold medal right in front of the home crowd.
A show of triples was on a display throughout both qualifications and finals, and to put things into perspective, we’ve probably witnessed more triples at the Games on Monday that during the entire 2021/22 World Cup campaign. In the super final alone Ashley Caldwell (USA), Xu Mengtao (CHN), Kong Fanyu (CHN), Laura Peel (AUS) and Hanna Huskova (BLR), all unleashed variations of a triples, proving that women’s aerial skiing have come a long way in terms of progress since the last time it was in a spotlight of the Olympic Winter Games.
At the end of the day it was Xu Mengtao, who managed to put down the cleanest full-full-full, when it counted the most, for a score of 108.61 points to claim her second medal at Beijing 2022, just a couple of days after she won the silver in the mixed team event.
"Winning these two medals in these Games, for mixed event and individual, are so significant because the team event is a new event for these Winter Games, and it’s the first medal that we got,” said Xu.
Xu secured victory for China, finally adding an Olympic gold to the country's packed trophy cabinet for women's aerials. Her gold medal complements a collection of seven silvers (including her own from Sochi 2014) and two bronze that had already made China the most decorated nations in history of aerials competition at the Olympic Winter Games.
Following her winning jump, she looked to the crowd and raised her country’s flag overhead, shouting, “We win”.
“I wanted to shout out,” the 31-year-old said. “I was so happy, exhilarated, excited when I made the landing. I revelled in the moment and wanted it to last longer. I was looking upon the course and into the stands and saw so many people cheering for me, and I wanted to tell people that I won today.”
Xu’su medal makes her the first freestyle skier to win two medals at a single Olympic Winter Games. The Chinese athlete is also the fourth freestyle skier to win three Olympic Games medals, going Kari Traa (NOR), Mikael Kingsbury (CAN) and Jia Zongyang (CHN) in this exclusive club. Finally she became the first aerial skier to win gold on home snow.
"Last time I won a medal it was eight years ago in Sochi (2014). Eight years is a long time for us, so I was very emotional at the award ceremony,” said Xu.
"Today I was finally able to win gold and create history. I am so lucky and so happy to be the one to secure the gold for China. I would not be able to do it without the support of my predecessors and my teammates. I created history today.”
Finishing in second place and winning the silver medal was the defending Olympic Champion Hanna Huskova, who finished closed behind Xu with 107.95 for her lay-full-full.
With her gold from PyeongChang and now silver in Beijing, Huskova is the third Belarusian woman with multiple medals at an Olympic Winter Games, after biathletes Darya Domracheva (six) and Nadezhda Skardino (two).
“For any athlete there's nothing more important than the Olympic Games,” said Huskova, "It takes years to get there, and finally you are there and you look inwardly to understand: will my dreams come true? Yes or no? In my case they did come true, and what happened is exactly what I expected would happen, so I am absolutely delighted."
Wrapping up her Olympic debut on a high was Megan Nick (USA), who won the bronze with 93.75 points for her full double full.
"It was just trying to be extremely present and grateful that I was even there in the super final,” said Nick, “I tried to come into these Games with no expectations, with only wanting to compete the way that I've been training. And so I was just focused on doing the jumps that I knew how to do, which is what my coach kept reminding me all day and it paid off."
"It was a really impressive competition, we had a lot of girls on the triple so I knew that I had to lay down some nice triple twisting doubles if I wanted to place well in the competition, so I was glad I was able to do that."
Nick’s bronze is the 29th freestyle skiing medal for the USA, which now leads the medal table over Canada with 27.
The aerials action at Beijing 2022 OWG now moves on to men’s competition with qualifications set to go down on Tuesday at 19:00, with finals following on Wednesday also at 19:00 local time.
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