Kiteboarding will make its Olympic debut at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. As a member of the Chinese national team, 24-year-old Chen Jingyue has gone through a lot and waited so long for this opportunity.

Though Chen only switched to professional kiteboarding in 2021, she has been the best kiteboarder on the national team. Having begun to practice the sport when she was 12, she was the first Chinese to win an international kiteboarding championship.

When the Chinese Yachting Association announced the establishment of the Chinese national kiteboarding team in 2018, Chen was immediately recruited by and joined the team. She finished in eighth place in the women's kiteboarding medal series at the Sailing World Championships in The Hague in August 2023 and secured the 2024 Olympic qualification in the event for China.

Chen continued to outperform her teammates in the three 2024 Olympic trials this year by finishing in the first place in all of them. When she began to kiteboard 12 years ago, she only did it as a hobby for fun. Now she is about to make her country proud in Paris as a professional athlete.

"I think I have grown much more mature," Chen told China Media Group. "I did it only for my own happiness in the past. But when I won the gold medal at the Asian Games and watched the Chinese national flag fly, I felt the load on my shoulders."

Chen admitted that she cried a lot since switching to professional kiteboarding because of the increased training sessions, practice and higher requirements. "I couldn't stand it all at the beginning," she said. "I felt so much pain every day. I was like 'Why do I have to do this?' But now that I look at that experience, I think it's all worth it."