Veteran Winter Olympians: Embodiments of the Olympic Spirit (4)

 Qi Guangpu: "This is my fourth Olympics. I have learned a lot."

Chasing his Olympic dream for 22 years, Chinese veteran Qi Guangpu won the men's aerials gold in his fourth Olympic appearance at Beijing 2022.

It was the first time for the 31-year-old Qi to reach the top spot on the podium during the Winter Olympics. Of his previous three appearances, Qi had his best performance at Sochi 2014, achieving fourth place, while having finished seventh twice at Vancouver 2010 and PyeongChang 2018. He kept a low profile until Wednesday night when he stunned the world with his near-perfect performance in the final round, which quashed all of the competition.

Having always maintained an ambitious goal of becoming an Olympic champion, his dream eventually came true after 22 years of effort. In the breathtaking final round, Qi jumped to the top of the crop through a brilliant trick, performing a back double full-full-double full, which boasts a degree of difficulty at 5.000, the highest in the world so far. The commanding performance having won 129 points for the veteran Chinese athlete as he climbed to the top of the podium.

"I did my best in the competition; almost every competitor did their best, so every trick was wonderful," he said.

"This is my fourth Olympics. I have learned a lot from the previous ones. This is just the right time for me to win the gold medal in China, my home country," Qi said.