Qi Guangpu competes in the men's freeski aerials final at Beijing 2022 on February 16, 2022. Photo: Cui Meng/Global Times

China's Qi Guangpu bagged the seventh gold for Team China in men's freeski aerials at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Wednesday after his silver in the mixed team event a few days ago.

Competing in his fourth Olympics, 31-year-old Qi twisted and turned in the air, turning in a solid ­performance, thanks to which he collected 129.00 points to win the gold medal. This is the first gold medal won by the Chinese men's aerials team in 16 years since Han Xiaopeng won the first men's aerials Olympic gold medal at the 2006 Turin Winter Games.

"I did it to let our national flag fly at the top," Qi said during an interview after winning the gold. He said that his performance wasn't good enough, and it could have been better. 

"The performance today was not the best jump. I was going to set a new record," he told the media. 

"In fact, I am a little tired today. I can't stand it any longer. I feel a little tired," Qi said in the interview.   

"For an athlete, he may only have one chance in 16 years to stand on the competition venue. Each athlete competes to be the champion."   

Oleksandr Abramenko of Ukraine got silver with 116.50 points. Ilia ­Burov of the Russian Olympic Committee finished third at 114.93 points. 

Another Chinese skier Jia Zongyang finished seventh in final 1, failing to advance to the decisive round.

After the competition, Qi had tears in his eyes, with a Chinese flag wrapped around his shoulders. His teammate Jia tearfully applauded Qi after the competition.

"Hopefully, next time, I will be more skilled at carrying the flag around the stadium for one circle or two," he said, noting that the charm of competitive sports is that there will be success and failure, and each athlete should continue to work hard and go beyond themselves, and the opponent.  

Qi Guangpu celebrates winning gold. Photo: Cui Meng/Global Times

The topic of Qi's winning gold soon trended on China's Twitter-like Weibo, and gained over 250 million clicks as of press time, with many netizens sending their congratulations to Qi as well as excitement over one more gold won by China Team at Beijing 2022.

Qi's performance won netizens' praise. "Congratulations to Qi on realizing your dream at home," one netizen wrote. "I cried and felt proud that you are bringing honor to your country," another netizen wrote.

"Chinese four-time Olympian Qi has proved best of himself with the highest difficulty," one popular ­comments goes. 

The Winter Sports Management Center of the General Administration of Sport of China on Wednesday sent a congratulatory letter to Qi, a two-time world champion. The center also congratulated the national freestyle aerials team for completing the competition successfully with two golds and one silver medal.

On Friday, three Chinese skiers, Xu Mengtao, Jia Zongyang and Qi, turned in a solid performance despite pressure from Team USA who beat them to the top spot with a score of 338.34. Canada won bronze, and Switzerland came in fourth.  

Each team fielded two male and one female skier. Xu, 31 made a brilliant start, scoring the highest at 106.03 points of all four female skiers in the first jump.