I almost touched the moon

After the competition started, the athletes went on stage in reverse order according to their ranking in the qualifying round. Beside Wen Song, Wang Shuning nervously held her arm tightly, but she seemed particularly calm.

"Sister, aren't you nervous?" Wang Shuning asked curiously, "This is your first time watching your senior brother's game in person, right?"

"Don't be nervous." Wen Song smiled faintly, "I believe he will win the medal."

A Chinese student who was watching the game nearby also asked Wang Shuning, "Which place is Cheng Che in?"

Wang Shuning smiled and said, "The second to last. He ranked second in the qualifying round."

"Number two?" a boy said, "Is he so amazing? I've never heard of him before."

"You'll know later." Seeing him showing his admiration for Cheng Che, Wen Song also said with a bit of pride, "His strength is not inferior to any European or American player."

The first athlete to appear was Evan Mersche, a skier from Austria, who won the gold medal in the last Freestyle Skiing World Championships with his extremely difficult double cork1800 in the third jump, combined with the double cork1440 in the first two jumps, and his flawless slopestyle movements.

However, he made frequent mistakes in the first two rounds of the qualifying round. Fortunately, he performed normally in the third round and entered the finals with the eighth place.

"Evan performed poorly in the qualifying round. He may have to face a do-or-die battle today." Wang Shuning looked worried when he said this.

As expected, Evan Mersche performed two left switch double cork 1440s in the first two jumps in the first round, and a left switch double cork 1620 in the last jump. He undoubtedly showed his top competitive state at the beginning, and the referee also gave him a high score of 85.1.

Wang Shuning said softly to Wen Song, "This score is very high. My senior brother's qualifying score was only 85.4."

After watching Evan Mersche's performance, Wen Song, who was originally not nervous, became secretly nervous. The opening move was three extremely difficult rotations and a flawless slopestyle move. If Cheng Che wanted to win the gold medal, the difficulty level must at least not be lower than that of Evan Mersche.

She thought of Cheng Che's training these days. He practiced boardless movements indoors from Monday to Wednesday. He practiced a 1440 rotation for two or three hours until it became a muscle memory. In order to get a higher score, he forced himself to practice the uncommon right foot switch 1800 and even the more difficult double cork 1800. As a result, he fell countless times on the snow field, with bruises all over his body.

Many times when they were talking on the phone, Cheng Che would be so tired that he would fall asleep after just a few words.

He may have extraordinary talent, or his wealthy family background may allow him to receive the most elite and cutting-edge skiing training in Switzerland. However, he is not a genius.

After more than ten years of hard practice, multiple falls and fractures while skiing, and more than a dozen steel nails in his legs, he finally got the opportunity to represent Asia in the Freestyle Skiing World Cup finals.

The first six contestants have finished the competition, and the next one to appear is Cheng Che.

Among a group of blond-haired, blue-eyed European and American contestants, Cheng Che's oriental face was particularly eye-catching. Even the audience around Wen Song said in disbelief, "Is he really Chinese? He can actually make it to the finals."

Wen Song glanced at him and replied bluntly: "Of course it's the Chinese. If you think it's unbelievable that a Chinese person made it to the finals, then I can only say that you are still living in the Middle Ages."

The man who was criticized by Wen Song also realized that his words were discriminatory and quickly apologized. Wen Song then stopped talking and focused on watching Cheng Che's game.

During the broadcast, the commentator said excitedly: "Cheng is the only Asian athlete present. As an Asian, he has undoubtedly created the best result for Asian men in freestyle skiing slopestyle. Since winning the runner-up in the Laax World Cup last year, this is the first time Cheng has stood on the World Cup field again after a full year. This time his goal must be to win the championship. I wonder if he can succeed."

“We noticed that Cheng chose a higher starting point to get a faster descent. The first obstacle was a 450 right turn and a 270 pretzel down.”

Wen Song saw this and smiled softly and said to Wang Shuning, "He must be hiding something. I remember he could do a 450 right turn and then a 450 pretzel."

Wang Shuning also smiled and said: "Brother did it on purpose. He rarely shows his full strength in the first round. After all, there are three rounds in total. The opponent can see everyone's moves and scores, so he will adjust the difficulty coefficient based on the opponent's performance."

When it came to the second slope slope area, Cheng Che did not hide his strength any more, but used switch right 630 up and reverse slide pretzel 270 down, which was undoubtedly the highest difficulty coefficient used by the current players in the slope slope area.

"Wow, Cheng showed a very high degree of difficulty on the second slope fence this time, and the next one is the third slope fence." The commentator's voice became a little louder, "Switch right270 with cork450 and Mute grab board, so cool!"

Next was the diving area, and Cheng Che's figure was getting closer and closer to the audience seats.

Wen Song looked at his figure, and suddenly she felt like crying. This was her first time watching Cheng Che's game live, and it was different from training and recording. She said she believed in him and would not worry or be nervous, but her heart was beating fast, and even her palms were sweating.

Cheng Che was wearing a helmet, ski sunglasses and a mask. Wen Song couldn't see his face or expression, but the silver skis on his feet shone brightly in the sun.

At the first diving platform, Cheng Che jumped and spun perfectly 4 and a half 360 degrees in the air. Finally, his right foot landed steadily and he slid quickly to the next diving platform.

"Wow!" the commentator exclaimed, "Switch right double cork 1620! Next is the second jump, the second jump is switch right double cork 1440! Now we are all looking forward to the difficulty coefficient of the third jump, will Cheng choose to challenge 1800!"

The third diving platform was right in front of the audience seats. Wen Song could see him clearly. He turned around and sped up, rushing towards the diving platform faster to get a higher jumping height.

After taking off, he first performed the same double cork1620 in the air as in the first diving area. When he was about to land, he added a pretzel to make an aerial twist, landed steadily on the right side, slid quickly to the finish line, and hugged Coach Mitchell excitedly.

“Backwards slide switch right double cork1620 followed by pretzel twist in the air and landing!!” Wang Shuning excitedly hugged Wen Song and screamed, “Ahhhhhhh sister!!! Senior brother is so awesome!!!!! Senior brother’s difficulty coefficient is the highest so far!!! And there are no mistakes!!!”

The referee's final score was very fair, giving a high score of 88.7, temporarily ranking first in the standings.

"Finally there is no blind referee." Wen Song said to Wang Shuning half-jokingly.

After seeing the score, Cheng Che took off his sunglasses and mask, looked at Wen Song, winked, showed a bright and confident smile, walked through the crowd, and said to her in mouth language, "I didn't let my sister down, did I?"

Wen Song looked at him, smiled and shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes. How could she be disappointed in Cheng Che? She had always known how strong Cheng Che was.

--split line--

PS: Because many of the skiing professional terms involved in the article have no Chinese translation, I will explain them here.

double cork1440/1620: 滑雪者会在空中完成两次翻转（double cork），每次翻转时还会绕着两个不同的轴旋转。1440指这个动作总共完成了四个360度的旋转；1620指4个360度旋转+1个180度旋转

Pretzel 270: The skier performs a 270-degree turn, then spins or twists his body in the air before landing and continuing on.

Switch right/left: Switch means that the skier slides with the non-dominant foot as the front foot. For example, if the skier usually slides with the right foot, switch left means sliding with the left foot as the front foot.

So the switch right double cork1620Pretzel that Cheng Che did in the article refers to the fact that he slid on the diving platform area with his non-dominant right foot as the front foot, completed two reversals in the air and rotated 4.5 360 degrees, and finally Pretzel rotated his body again in the air (commonly known as aerial twist) and landed on the right side.