Chinese freestyle skiers win silver, bronze for China

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Chinese freestyle skiers Zhang Xin and Kong Fanyu bagged silver and bronze medals respectively in the women’s freestyle skiing event at 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics on Friday, winning the third silver and first bronze medal for Team China at this year’s Games.

Kong Fanyu celebrating the victory. /Xinhua Photo‍

Freestyle skiing is an artistic competition in which aerial acrobatics are performed while the athletes glide down a ski slope, and because of its diverse nature, it is often compared to a circus on the snow.

Unlike Alpine Skiing, where athletes compete for speed, Freestyle Skiing characteristically allows athletes to compete in aerial skills such as back flips and twists.

Zhang Xin in action. /VCG Photo

The Olympic Winter Games include 10 freestyle skiing events: Moguls, Aerials, Ski Halfpipe, Ski Cross, and Ski Slopestyle. And in freestyle skiing aerials, athletes need to ski off two to four meter ramps that propel them up to six meters in the air where they then perform twists and flips.

The final score comes from multiplying the difficulty score by the total score from the three judges excluding highest and lowest scores.

Chinese freestyle skier Kong Fanyu. /VCG Photo

Zhang Xin scored 95.52 overall, only 0.62 points less than the gold medal winner, Hanna Huskova from Belarus. Kong Fanyu scored 70.14.

(With input from Pyeongchang2018.com)