Reporter's Diary: PyeongChang Day 4

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It always felt like today would be a little different to those we’ve already experienced at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Something special was in the air.

The temperature on the way to Phoenix Snow Park for the women’s snowboard halfpipe final was minus four degrees Celsius. Add the wind chill factor into the equation and it was minus 13.

There were small snowflakes blowing about in the mountains and yet, as I stood at the foot of the halfpipe from where 12 of the world’s best women snowboarders would take their drop hoping for gold, it was as though the Olympic gods were watching on and smiling.

The wind was light, the sunshine warm and the skies clear.

Snowboarding women's halfpipe finals at Pheonix Snow Park on February 13, 2018. /VCG Photo

On previous days the wind gusts had been up to 80 kilometers an hour, postponing some of the training runs at the venue and unfortunately ending the Olympic dream of one young 17-year-old hopeful.

Australia’s Tess Coady caught an edge before she crashed and ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament. She will be out of the sport for months.

Officials were asked to investigate to determine whether the competitors should have been allowed to practice at all.

Today, though, was just about as perfect as you could get for snowboarding－the sport that has made the Olympics relevant to a whole new generation of enthusiasts.

Snowboarders are different. They are cool. They are relaxed. Their attitude belies their athleticism and their thrill-seeking nature.

Can you imagine standing at the top of a halfpipe, with a plank strapped to your feet, generating as much speed as you can before launching yourself into the air to twist, turn and somersault like some sort of spinning top gone mad, before landing as cool as a cucumber and casually giving a peace-sign to the gathered cameras at the bottom of the pipe like what you just did was nothing terribly extraordinary.

Well, can you?

It’s something China’s Liu Jiayu has done a million times since she was 11; since she gave up martial arts to take on this new sport China had decided to invest in.

Today she proved that that investment was worth it.

Liu Jiayu of China celebrates after winning a silver medal at the Snowboarding Women's Halfpipe Finals at Pheonix Snow Park, February 13, 2018. /VCG Photo

Despite having to have surgery three times on dislocated and broken shoulders.

Despite the pain of recovery and physiotherapy that has taken thousands of hours to get her to this point.

Despite the disappointment of finishing just off the podium – in fourth place – at her first Olympics in Vancouver in 2010.

Despite being injured again heading into the Sochi 2014 Olympics but still managing to finish inside the top 10.

Today in PyeongChang, China’s most talented snowboarder wrote her name and nation into the record books taking out a silver medal in the women’s halfpipe.

She’s the first Chinese – man or woman – to win an Olympic medal in snowboarding and in doing so became China’s first medalist at these games.

Liu Jiayu of China wins silver medal for the Snowboard Ladies' Halfpipe Finals at Pheonix Snow Park, February 13, 2018. /VCG Photo

Liu is a former World Champion, World Cup winner and an Asian Games gold medalist, but this – her first Olympic medal－must be one of her most precious moments.

In an interview after her medal presentation, she told me South Korea has always been good to her – this is the place she won her world title in 2009.

I asked her whether she’d given any thought yet to a fourth Olympic Games – Beijing in 2022.

She said she had. Then she added she’d probably compete until she is 100 if she could, that’s how much she loves the sport.

Liu has become one of China’s most recognized faces on the world tour and one of the sport's most respected athletes.

Despite only being in her mid-twenties, she’s a veteran on the snowboard circuit and I doubt you’d be able to find a single person that didn’t believe she deserved her place on the Olympic podium today.

Her father was in the crowd watching, and her physiotherapist – the one that puts her back together again every time she breaks.

Both of them had tears in their eyes because they, more than most, know how much it has taken for Liu Jiayu to turn her 15-year-old Olympic dream into today’s reality.