Winter Olympics: China’s Qi Guangpu finally breaks through for gold in his fourth Winter Olympics as skaters stumble
- The 31-year-old Qi scores a stunning 129 in his final jump to win by a clear margin and give China their seventh gold medal of the Beijing Winter Olympics
- China’s speed skaters finished last on the closing day of short track competition in the men’s 5,000m relay and women’s 1,500m finals
Qi Guangpu completed a Chinese freestyle skiing aerials double when he impressively won the men’s individual gold on Wednesday, two days after compatriot Xu Mengtao won the women’s event.
China’s record seventh title of the Beijing Winter Olympics, though, failed to spark an expected gold rush on day 12 after the short-track speed skaters were unable to make their favoured status count in the finals.
Mixed team gold medallists Ren Ziwei and Wu Dajing, along with Sun Long and Li Wenlong finished last out of five teams in the men’s 5,000m short track relay final at the Capital Indoor Stadium after Sun stumbled. Canada took gold ahead of South Korea and Italy, with Russia fourth.
Han Yutong then finished seventh and last in the women’s 1,500m short track final after leading halfway through. Choi Min-jeong, of South Korea, won gold in 2:17.81, more than three seconds outside her world record, with Italy’s Arianna Fontana taking silver ahead of the Netherlands’ Suzanne Schulting.
But there was no denying Qi, the former double world champion who won silver in the mixed team event on Thursday. He delivered a spectacular quintuple twister and nailed the landing for 129 points to finish well clear.
Ukraine’s defending champion Oleksandr Abramenko (116.50) took silver and Russia’s Ilia Burov (114.93) claimed bronze for the second Games in a row.
