THE Chinese alpine skiing national team is confident that they will qualify for all 11 alpine skiing events in the coming 2022 Winter Olympic Games, Liu Zhen, team’s manager, told Xinhua News Agency. The 21-member team arrived in Austria in late August, according to Liu. They first spent about two months on fundamental training and then proceeded to specialized sessions in November. The athletes began to attend competitions from early December and have finished four organized by International Ski Federation (FIS) to earn Winter Olympic qualification points. The launching of alpine skiing competitions is limited to geographic and weather factors. Three qualification points events in Austria from November to early December were canceled because of weather problems, Liu explained why the team only began to compete for qualification points until December. Chinese athletes missed a lot of international competitions in 2020 because of COVID-19 and, as a result, lagged in Winter Olympic qualification points. Fortunately, they have been catching up fast since February. They have already secured spots in seven events for Beijing 2022 before coming to Austria. “There are a total of 11 alpine skiing events in the 2022 Winter Olympics. Our athletes have already been qualified for 10 of them,” Liu said to Xinhua. The only event left on the agenda is the women’s super-giant slalom (Super G). Two Chinese athletes have already collected 82 and 85 points. They only have 72 and 74 points, respectively, in the next match to qualify for Beijing 2022. Liu said they are very confident to do that in January. Zhang Yangming and Xu Mingfu of the Chinese men’s team are both qualified for five events. The men’s team departed for home Saturday before starting training behind closed doors in Chongli District, Zhang Jiakou City of North China’s Hebei Province. The women’s team will stay in Europe for one more week of competitions between Jan. 10 and 14 before returning to China and joining the men’s team in Chongli.(Xinhua) | 