Chinese women's freestyle skier Liu Mengting performs a trick during the final round of FIS Snowboard and Freeski Big Air World Cup series' Beijing leg at 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 list in the big air discipline at her Winter Olympic debut in Italy.
Riding on the momentum from her third-place finish at last week's season-opening World Cup event in Chongli, Hebei province, Liu, a freestyle skier specializing in the high-flying big air discipline, stepped up her efforts to qualify for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Games by winning a silver medal at the Cup series' leg stop in Beijing on Saturday.
Hurling down from the Shougang Big Air slope with poise, Liu landed her first two runs in the final with high quality — stomping a left dub 1440 cindy to score a field high 90.50 points in her first jump and a right dub 1080 safety to score 81.75 points in her second.
Chinese women's freestyle skier Liu Mengting hoists her runner-up trophy after winning a silver medal at the FIS Snowboard and Freeski Big Air World Cup series' Beijing leg at the Shougang Industrial Park on Saturday. AN LINGJUN / FOR CHINA DAILY
The 21-year-old finished runner-up with a total of 172.25 points behind winner Anni Karava of Finland, who overtook Liu with two solid runs from her second and third attempts, scoring a winning total of 175.50 points.
Canada's Naomi Urness rounded up the podium at third with 171.50 points from her second and third runs. Eight women had made it to the final round, where each of them took three runs with their two best scores counted for the final standing.
Liu's silver finish marked Chinese athletes' best-ever result at Shougang Big Air, a Beijing 2022 venue, on the FIS freeski World Cup series. Only two-time Olympic champion Eileen Gu had achieved a better result at the same venue by winning the big air gold at the Beijing Winter Games.
"To be able to achieve two podium finishes on the World Cup stage in a row and doing it both on home snow was really a big honor for me," said Liu, whose previous best at Shougang was last year's sixth-place finish in the west Beijing industrial park.
"I am very proud of my myself for achieving such consistent results, which will definitely encourage myself to push for better outcomes as a great confidence booster," said Liu, who won her first and only World Cup big air title in Klagenfurt, Austria, in January.
"There remains a long way to Milan from now on. I've prepared for the Olympics for a long time. I believe I still have room for improvements and I will take one step at a time to elevate myself for the Olympic goal. Hopefully, I can continue skiing with the consistency that I've shown these two weeks."
In the men's final, Norway's Ulrik Samnoey won gold with a total of 184.00 points, followed by runner-up Luca Harrington of New Zealand (182.50 points) and Austria's bronze medalist Matej Svancer (180.00 points).
The FIS freeski big air World Cup series next travels to Steamboat, Colorado for its penultimate stop of the four-leg season, which will serve as the third and final Olympic qualification event for Milano-Cortina 2026.
After the Steamboat stop, which runs from Dec 11-13, skiers will take a monthlong break, before learning who will ski on their way to the Olympics, when the Olympic Qualification Quota, based on the ranking of their World Cup points, is published on Jan 19.
sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn
