Step aside Eileen Gu. Hosts China have a new teenage hero at the Beijing Olympics after 17-year-old Su Yiming yesterday added an emphatic snowboard big air gold to his controversial silver.
Su scorched to the big air title with a runaway score of 182.50 to win his second medal at the Games, having been unlucky to only come away with silver in last week’s slopestyle.
The former child actor was so good that he had the title in the bag even before his third and final run.
Photo: AFP
Su’s latest success went viral on Sina Weibo, where a hashtag about it clocked up about 750 million views in just a few hours.
He took a dominant gold ahead of Norway’s Mons Roisland, on 171.75, with Canada’s Max Parrot — the slopestyle winner — taking bronze with 170.25.
Su has competed in just six FIS Snowboard World Cup events and last week became the first men’s snowboarding Olympic medalist in China’s history.
Photo: Reuters
“This feels insane, it’s something I’ve never experienced before... I can’t believe I got this gold,” Su said. “I trained every day for the past four years. Every night I was dreaming about this moment.”
When he was eight, Su appeared in the epic action movie The Taking of Tiger Mountain (智取威虎山), before deciding to fully dedicate himself to snowboarding.
With hair that tumbles below his ears, he still has something of the film star about him.
Su’s silver in the slopestyle had been contentious, with many experts saying that he should have been awarded gold ahead of Parrot.
Iztok Sumatic, the head judge in Beijing, subsequently told the snowboarding magazine Whitelines that they made a mistake in the scoring of Parrot.
Su put all that behind him yesterday and said he had been motivated by competing on home snow and by his passion for the sport.
“I wanted to try my best for this,” he said. “The most important thing though is all about love. Snowboarding is not just about competition.”
In a touching moment, Su pointed at his parents when he was standing on the podium.
“I haven’t seen my parents for the past seven months because I went to Europe for training and to many places for competitions,” he said. “This moment is so special for me and also my family.”
Su even managed — for a time at least — to upstage Californian-born Gu, his Chinese teammate and the unofficial face of the Games.
Eighteen-year-old Gu, who represented the US before switching to the country of her mother’s birth in 2019, now has one gold and one silver after she came second in the women’s freestyle skiing slopestyle earlier in the day.
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and partner Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia yesterday advanced to the women’s doubles final at the Australian Open after defeating New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe and Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 6-3 in their semi-final. Hsieh has won nine Grand Slam doubles titles and has a shot at a 10th tomorrow, when the Latvian-Taiwanese duo are to play Taylor Townsend of the US and Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic in the championship match at the A$96.5 million (US$61 million) outdoor hard court tournament at Melbourne Park. Townsend and Siniakova eliminated Russian pair Diana Shnaider and Mirra Andreeva 6-7
Manchester City have reached do-or-die territory in the UEFA Champions League earlier than expected ahead of what Pep Guardiola has described as a “final” against Club Brugge today. City have disproved the suggestion a new format to Europe’s top club competition would remove any jeopardy for the top clubs as Guardiola stares down the barrel of failing to make the Champions League knockout stages for the first time in his career. The English champions have endured a torrid season both in their English Premier League title defense and on the continent. A run of one win in 13 games, which included Champions League
Things are somewhat out of control at the Australian Open this year, and that has only a little to do with the results on the courts. Yes, there were some upsets, including Madison Keys eliminating No. 2 Iga Swiatek in the women’s singles semi-finals on Thursday. It also was the first time since 1990 that three teenagers beat top-10 men’s seeds at a Grand Slam tennis tournament. The loser of one of those matches, Daniil Medvedev, got fined US$76,000 for behaving badly. Last year’s women’s singles runner-up exited in the first round. However, the real fuss is happening elsewhere. The rowdy fans, for one
The CTBC Brothers from Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) on Friday announced they reached an agreement with the team’s shortstop Chiang Kun-yu (江坤宇) to extend his contract by 10 years in a deal that could worth up to NT $147.88 million (US$4.5 million). Including a NT$10 million incentive bonus, the 24-year- old’s new contract stipulates that his monthly salary will be NT$660,000 starting this year, increasing to NT$1.2 million from the fifth year of the deal. Chiang’s new agreement also comes with a caveat in the form of a “player option” where he would have the choice to become a free
RSS