High-flying Cai keeps soaring

After capping a perfect season with a maiden US Open victory on Saturday, Chinese snowboarder Cai Xuetong says she still has plenty of new tricks up her sleeve as expectations rise she can grab Olympic gold on home soil in two years' time.

With two world championship crowns and 12 World Cup titles already in her cabinet, the 26-year-old finally added the coveted US Open women's superpipe trophy to her collection in her sixth appearance at the high-profile event at Vail Ski Resort in Colorado.

Cai finished top of the FIS World Cup standings for a record sixth time last month, and made history again on Saturday by becoming the first Chinese to win gold in the 38-year history of the world's oldest snowboarding competition.

Cheered on by a raucous crowd, Cai made the best out of flawless conditions on the pipe to stomp some high-flying tricks, including an alley-oop to start off, a stylish frontside 900 grab, and a huge air to fakie (a 180-degree mid-air turn and then riding backwards on landing) in her first run that earned her 88.16 points to prevail in the six-rider final.

"This feels so unbelievable. This is the title I've always wanted. This event is for snowboarding. The setup is really good and I really enjoy riding here," she told China Daily on Sunday in a telephone interview.

"I was planning to do two 900 tricks but the modified pipe made it difficult to connect with two high-flying hits in a row. Anyway, I am super excited the way I rode this year," added Cai, who previously had a runner-up, a third-place and three fourth-place finishes at the event dating back to 2015.

Unlike the long halfpipe used at the world championships and Olympics, the modified pipe at the US Open starts with a minipipe connected by a flat ramp before going into the finishing pipe section.

The setup makes it difficult for riders to connect big tricks while encouraging them to perform more creative runs.

Reflecting on her superb 2019-20 season as the overall winner of the World Cup circuit and now as the new US Open champion, Cai said her biggest takeaway is to race with a steady frame of mind.

"I just don't think too much anymore and just drop in at each race doing the best I can on that day," said Cai, a three-time Olympian since the 2010 Vancouver Games.

"Having grown older competing on the tour for so many years, I've learned to always stay positive no matter how big a win I just pulled off or how bad I did in the last run. Stay not too high and not too low is what I found that suits me extremely well this year."

On the technical side, Cai is as hungry as she was 15 years ago to try new tricks.

With the Olympic title of American Chloe Kim (who skipped this season to focus on study) in her sights, Cai is aiming to level up her trick difficulty by attempting to land two 1080 spins (front and backside) in a row in the coming offseason.

"I still see room to improve in my trick difficulty and quality. As long as I can make it more consistent, I believe I have a chance (to beat Kim)," said Cai, who goes by the nickname Tong Tong.

Team China's head coach Timo-Pekka Koskela is also confident Olympic gold is within reach.

"Tong Tong is mentally very strong. She can always step it up under pressure. That's super important for an athlete if you want to be on top," said the Finn, who has been working with the Chinese squad for five and a half years.

"Even she's competed for a long time, she still improves every year. We haven't seen the best Tong Tong yet."

With China preparing to host the world's best riders at the 2022 Winter Olympics, homegrown talents such as Cai and her teammate Liu Jiayu appear to be peaking at the right moment, giving the sport a timely boost back home.

"It's getting there," Cai said of snowboarding's rising popularity in China since the country won the bid for the 2022 Games in 2015.

China won its first Olympic snowboarding medal at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, where Liu was only beaten to halfpipe silver by Kim.

The 27-year-old Liu was also at Vail over the weekend but opted not to compete due to a minor lower-back injury sustained at the World Cup tour's final leg in Calgary, Canada. She said the growth of the sport since her 2018 silver medal has been surreal to see.

"It's just getting bigger numbers, every year, all the time, and it's not going to stop, because we have so many people in China," she said.

Koskela concurred, believing that the home Olympics will only be the beginning.

"More people will get involved with snowboarding and want to try it, and especially after the Chinese athletes doing well in recent years," he said. "I am positive we will see more people get interested in snowboarding beyond 2022."