The aviation technology behind ski jumping

 Among the wonderful ice and snow sports at the Beijing Winter Olympics, ski jumping is an extreme winter Olympic sport that combines speed, strength and courage. It is very popular among ice and snow enthusiasts from all over the world for its long jumping distance and graceful movements. The wind in nature is a ski jumper's closest partner in training and competition.

"Different environmental winds, different movement speeds, different body weights, and different flight attitudes will produce corresponding air changes. This is what professionals call aerodynamic characteristics." Aviation Industry Corporation of China Limited Air Yuan Li, president of the Power Research Institute (hereinafter referred to as the Aeronautical Industry Aerodynamics Institute) and China Ice and Snow Science Advisor, told the Science and Technology Daily reporter.

Yuan Li told reporters that after more than a year of wind tunnel-assisted training and computational fluid dynamics research, the Aeronautical Industry Institute of Aeronautics used aviation wind tunnel technology to make a historic breakthrough in the performance of Chinese ski jumpers. The athlete won the first place in the sub-station for the first time in the international points competition, and finally the Chinese ski jumping team got 3 "admission tickets" to the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Technology helps Chinese athletes "fly" higher at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

"There is still a gap between China and the top countries of ice and snow eports!" Reporters often hear such a comment at the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Many ice and snow events in China started late and have a weak foundation, but at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, Chinese ice and snow athletes have achieved many substantial leaps from "scratch" - not only to participate in the entire event, but also to achieve good results. The gap is narrowing, and the help of technology is indispensable.

"Secret Weapon" Special Wind Tunnel

How to let a group of athletes from "cross-item selection" quickly master the sport? How to make them better handle the wind?

Using artificial intelligence assistance system, real-time collection of athletes' jumping angle, aerial posture, speed, distance and other data, to provide better scientific and technological support to the coaching team... This is the chief scientist of the national key research and development plan "Science and Technology Winter Olympics", from Shanghai Sports Liu Yu of the academy, and what the team he is responsible for is doing.

Laiyuan National Ski Jumping Training and Scientific Research Base has overcome another difficulty: ensuring the "quantity" of training. In the past, Chinese athletes had only one option - training abroad, with high risk of injury and low efficiency. With the completion of the Laiyuan National Ski Jumping Training and Research Base, all the problems have been solved. The base is also equipped with the world's largest and China's first dedicated ski jumping wind tunnel laboratory, which is the "secret weapon" for improving the training level of athletes.