CHINA’S Qi Guangpu claimed the gold medal in the men’s aerials freestyle skiing at the Beijing Winter Olympics in Zhangjiakou last night. Competing in his fourth Olympics, Qi collected 129.00 points to win China’s seventh gold at the Winter Games after his silver in the mixed team event. Oleksandr Abramenko of Ukraine took silver with 116.50 points. Ilia Burov of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) finished third in 114.93 points. Another Chinese skier Jia Zongyang finished seventh in final 1, failing to advance to the decisive round. It was also the second gold medal for China in the aerial finals after Xu Mengtao won the women’s edition Monday. Qi stomped the most difficult jump seen at an Olympic Games. Performing a quintuple-twisting triple-back somersault — with two twists in the first somersault, one in the second, and two in the third — Qi dropped his helmet-clad head in his hands in disbelief in the finish area of the Genting Snow Park. The roar from the watching Chinese onlookers when the score of 129.00 popped up confirmed Qi was pretty much nailed on for gold. However, there were three athletes still to go but none were able to beat Qi. This was the 31-year-old’s fourth time at an Olympic Winter Games but a first time medal winner in this discipline, following a fourth-place finish at Sochi 2014 and seventh at Pyeongchang 2018 and Vancouver 2010. The Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic champion Oleksandr Abramenko performed the same jump but a heavy landing and brief hand touch on the snow proved costly and the Ukrainian finished with a silver medal. Bronze medalist, the ROC’s Ilia Burov dropped to the floor on realizing he’d just claimed his first Olympic medal besting his brother Maxim, who was one of the favorites for the gold medal but was surprisingly knocked out in the first qualifying round. This is the third medal for China in aerials after the hosts also won a silver in the mixed team — with both Qi and Jia part of the team — and Xu Mengtao’s gold in the women’s edition. (SD-Xinhua) | 