By Lei Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-12-26 08:53

Han Xiaopeng, China's men's freestyle-skiing aerials gold medalist, entered the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games as a dark horse. He surprised the world by beating big-name aerialists like then World Cup-leader Kyle Nissen of Canada and Belarus' Alexei Girshin, a bronze medalist at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

Olympic champion Han Xiaopeng in action during the freestyle aerials at the World Cup series last weekend in Changchun, Jilin Province. [Xinhua]

But after adding the 2007 World Championship to his trophy case, Han has shed his dark-horse status and has become a full-fledged favorite. Now the 25-year-old has his eyes set on defending his title at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.

"All the competitions in these years are practices for the 2010 Olympics," said Han. "My foremost concern now is to work harder so I can defend my gold medal at the Olympics."

Han has indeed broken out this season, winning one bronze and one silver at the two opening World Cup stops held last week in Changchun, capital of Northeast China's Jilin Province.

But Han was hardly satisfied with his performance.

With an Olympic gold medal and a world championship title in his pocket, Han is just a World Cup gold away from realizing the skiing grand slam, which includes titles in all three competitions.

Born in Jiangsu Province in East China where warm weather makes snow and ice a rarity, Han was a sports acrobat in his early years. But when Yang Er'qi, an aerials coach from Shenyang Sports Institute in Northeast China's Liaoning Province, saw Han's agility and courage as an acrobat in 1995, he immediately recruited Han for aerials.

Only four years after picking up aerials, Han took the silver medal at the Ninth National Winter Games in 1999. He won his first national championship one year later.

Serious injury

In 2000, Han made his World Cup debut as one of the best men's aerialists on the national team. But as the Olympics approached, the talented youngster hit a major hurdle.

At the end of 2001, just two months before the Salt Lake City Games, Han tore a ligament in his right knee during a training session. He made it to the Games anyway, but his ailing knee resulted in a poor performance.

He would recover, however, and during the 2004-05 season, Han ended the year ranked third in the World Cup standings, finishing second at the Czech stop leading up to the Turin Games.

His unexpected victory in Turin suddenly made him a national hero. His efforts allowed China to achieve another landmark on snow after the country had ended its Winter Olympic gold-medal drought in 2002 when Yang Yang snatched two short-track speed skating titles.

Han said the Olympic gold completely changed his life.

"I became much busier after coming back from the Turin Games," he said. "As an athlete, I like this kind of feeling, since I gained it through my efforts. I like to feel the accomplishment."

But he understands that if he wants to repeat his glory, he must start from the very beginning and work even harder.

"The biggest opponent for me to defend the Olympic title is myself," he said. "I have to conquer everything from my own side, such as the techniques and psychology and I have to get back to calmness from my busy life as well."

To help his case for victory in 2010, Han is currently practicing an extremely difficult new movement.

"During the summer training on water in the US, I finished a movement with the highest degree of difficulty in the world at present, but I still have no time to try in on snow," Han said. "For the next step of training, I hope to practice it on snow and try to use it at some World Cup events in the future."

Han said currently only three skiers in the world could execute that move, and only one skier landed it successfully in competition at a World Cup stop last season.

"There are so many top skiers in the men's freestyle aerials, so I have to train harder to defend (my gold) at the Olympic Games," Han said.