Once again, he forced himself into a desperate situation, and once again saved the day. This may be the script that Gu Ailing is most familiar with.
In the women's U-shaped field preliminaries of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics Winter Olympics held on the night of February 19, local time, Chinese player Gu Ailing failed in the first jump and scored 86.50 points in the second jump, qualifying for the finals in fifth place. The remaining three Chinese players Li Fanghui (90.00 points, second place), Zhang Kexin (82.75 points, sixth place), and Liu Yishan (76.00 points, 11th place) also advanced successfully.
In the third preliminaries of this Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing was once again forced into a last-ditch situation.
Gu Ailing competed in three events at this Winter Olympics, and encountered the same situation in all three preliminaries—failed the first jump in the slope obstacle preliminaries and relied on her performance in the second round to qualify for the finals; failed the first jump on the big platform B and relied on the third round to pass. Even she herself couldn't explain this state: "Why is it always like this? It's like this for three projects. I really can't explain the reason."
"This is the sixth Olympic preliminaries that I have participated in. It is not easy to compete in six times and reach the finals six times. It is really difficult to maintain the condition continuously." Gu Ailing said frankly that she had to take care of three items in the limited training time. Although the U pool is the main event, the training time allocated is extremely limited. "I haven't skated in the U pool for two months. After the competition in Genting in December, I haven't touched the U pool because I have been training for slope obstacles. But there is no way. This is my own choice."
Gu Ailing admitted that she was a little tired
As a rare athlete who can compete in both U-shaped field and slope obstacle/big platform (the latter two events share Olympic qualifications), Gu Ailing does have to face the practical problem of too tight schedule and training time.
According to her, after the big platform finals on the evening of the 16th, she accepted media interviews and doping tests. It was already around 1 a.m. on the 17th when she returned to her place of residence. She trained until 10 a.m. that night, and arranged an early morning public training on the 18th, followed by today's competition.
The successive heavy snowfalls in Livigno also brought surprises. Gu Ailing could only participate in two U-shaped field open trainings in total (the other one completely conflicted with the big platform finals), and one of them happened to catch up with the heavy snow. She said frankly: "At that time, I couldn't fly out of the U pool, and I couldn't do the moves. So it felt like I hadn't skated in the U pool for two months, and I came directly to participate in the Olympics. It was quite difficult."
After entering the finals, Gu Ailing is still the favorite to win the championship.
In the short interview, Gu Ailing talked about being "exhausted" and hoped to finish the final safely. At the same time, she also did not forget to comfort herself: "It's okay, there is only one day left, and then you can lie down."
Although he only advanced to the finals in fifth place in the preliminaries, in order to ensure the success of the second jump, Gu Ailing chose safe low-difficulty moves for the last three moves after completing the first three difficult moves. Despite her reservations, Gu Ailing still scored 86.50 points, which shows that she will still be the favorite to win the championship in the finals on the 21st. What will be the result of the sixth event final of the two Olympic Games? The strong Gu Ailing will never lower her demands on herself, provided that she can get sufficient rest in the day and a half before the game.
(This newspaper’s special dispatch from Livigno on February 19)
