Gu Ailing to debut in new season at Halfpipe World Cup

Chinese Olympian Gu Ailing won the women's snowboarding championship at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing Photo:VCG

As highly anticipated, the 2023-24 ­international Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) Halfpipe World Cup kicked off in Genting Snow Park, Chongli, North China's Hebei Province on Wednesday. 

The pacesetter has been the 20-year-old Olympian Gu Ailing: This is her first FIS competition in the new season and she will compete for China in the freestyle halfpipe qualification rounds on Thursday. 

Meanwhile, Gu will break the road to win the championship without a hitch on Saturday, once she advances to the qualification. 

Three Chinese up-and-coming snowboarders, Liu Jiayu, Cai Xuetong and Qiu Leng, participated in the qualifying match and advanced to the women's snowboarding final by placing second, third and eighth respectively on Wednesday.

Gu suffered a serious injury while training in Austria last month and she said that the injury still causes her pain every time she jumps. 

"This is the big challenge for me, I've never suffered a serious injury before," she said in a recent interview. 

A tenacious athlete, Gu still made "scary" 900-degree twists in Tuesday's practice despite being seriously wounded as having her injured arm bound tightly. 

Nearly 200 well-known athletes will participate in the four-day competition in Chongli. Among the Chinese national players, there will be Liu Jiayu, Cai Xuetong and Zhang Kexin, who will regard this event as a starting point to prepare for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy. 

Ayumu Hirano, a Japanese Olympic champion of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing; Gaon Choi, a 14-year-old snowboarder from South Korea and Queralt Castellet, a Spanish snowboarder who won a silver medal in the women's halfpipe at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, will also compete for this match.