BEIJING, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- At the National Ski Jumping Center, three Chinese athletes will participate in four ski jumping events at Beijing 2022, with both numbers representing a new record for China at the Winter Olympics.
In the upcoming Games, Dong Bing and Peng Qingyue will compete in the women's normal hill individual, while Song Qiwu will take part in both the men's normal hill and large hill individuals. They will also compete together in the normal hill mixed team, an event new to the Olympic program for 2022.
17-year-old Peng and 20-year-old Song were track and field athletes before being selected to the national ski jumping team. Similarly, Dong, 25, was once a Nordic combined athlete. All three will be making their Olympic ski jumping debut at Beijing 2022.
Chinese ski jumpers first appeared at the Winter Olympics at Turin 2006, in which Li Yang finished 44th in the men's normal hill individual, missing the finals. At PyeongChang 2018, Chang Xinyue finished 20th in the finals of the women's normal hill individual.
Chinese ski jumpers are benefitting from advanced training facilities like the wind tunnel at the national training center in north China's Hebei Province, where athletes can simulate ski jumping in a scientific and effective way.
Dong took second place at the FIS Ski Jumping Continental Cup in December 2021, while Song also scored in World Cup-level finals. Chinese ski jumpers have made great progress, said Xu Gaohang, manager of China's national ski jumping team.
Hailing from southwest China's Yunnan Province, Peng has caught the attention of other countries' ski jumping coaches for her impressive physical fitness and explosiveness, with many believing that Peng represents the future of Chinese ski jumping.
34-year-old Polish ski jumper Kamil Stoch, who won two gold medals at Sochi 2014 and one at PyeongChang 2018, will embrace another Olympics in Beijing. Germany's Karl Geiger and Ryoyu Kobayashi from Japan lead the scorers in this season's ski jumping World Cup.
In the women's competition, 20-year-old Austrian Marita Kramer is the favorite with five gold medals in eight stops in this season's World Cup. A frontrunner at PyeongChang 2018, Japan's Sara Takanashi will also compete for the podium, while Norway's 2018 Olympic champion Maren Lundby will miss Beijing 2022 due to injuries. ■
