In the absence of Winter Olympic champion Han Xiaopeng, Li Ke emerged as the most impressive men’s aerials jumper at the 11th Chinese National Winter Games here in Yabuli.
Having led Changchun to the victory in the men’s team event on Friday, Li became a double gold medal winner on Monday after grabbing the individual free event title with a remarkable advantage of 9.911 points over the silver medallist Jia Zhongyang of Fushun.
Nevertheless, the 24-year-old Li appeared to be pretty cool facing the biggest victories in his career.
“Of course I am happy for the victories, but I am not so satisfied with my performance,” Li told reporters. “I made a little mistake in my first jump, I should have done better.”
Li was to leave Yabuli Monday afternoon to take part in World Cup events to be held in Canada, the United States and Japan.
“I had my best ever World Cup finish, a sixth, at Changchun last month, I will try my best in the following events,” Li added.
Born in Jiangsu province, also the hometown of Han Xiaopeng, Li began to have freestyle aerials training in 1998. Five years later, he was called up by the national team.
“Han is an Olympic champion, every other jumper in the national team is trying to catch up with him,” Li said. “Our goal is to win the gold medal at the Vancouver Games, all the jumpers including me will strive toward that.”
According to Li, he has to improve both on degree of difficulty and consistency of landing in order to have better results at international competitions.
“The degrees of difficulty of the jumps I performed at this Games were the same with what Han did at the Turino Winter Games, but I did not finish very well,” Li said.
Li also admitted he should be stronger mentally.
“I had a big chance to win on Saturday, but I was worn down by the pressure,” he said, referring to the men’s compulsory event, where Li fell on both jumps for a disappointing seventh finish. “Han’s absence brought me pressure as well as opportunity.”
Ren Hongguo, vice president of the Chinese Ski Association, was confident in Li’s future.
“Li is a very talented jumper with the Chinese national team,” Ren said. “With his help, the Chinese team will have a bigger chance to win the gold medal at the next Winter Olympic Games.”