20 | Monday, August 30, 2021 HONG KONG EDITION | CHINA DAILY SPORTS WINTER OLYMPICS By SUN XIAOCHEN
[email protected] ar from the slopes, China’s I’ve gained more top snowboarders are tak- Snowboarders beef up muscle obviously on ing cues from inside the Octagon as they shape up my body and Fand toughen up for next year’s Bei- improved my core jing Winter Olympics. As part of an agreement between strength to potentially Ultimate Fighting Championship hang in the air longer, and the Chinese Olympic Commit- Beijing preparations tee, the Las Vegas-based mixed mar- which makes it tial arts organization opened its possible for me to do Performance Institute in Shanghai to Liu Jiayu and Cai Xuetong last UFC lends a hand with tailor-made training for Winter Olympians more difficult tricks.” month, with the two riders undergo- Liu Jiayu, ing tailor-made strength and condi- on her training at the UFC Per- tioning programs. formance Institute in Shanghai Already, the pair are encouraged by the results as they smash through their physical limits ahead of the all- little advantage she can find as she important Olympic season. prepares to battle it out with defend- “The training here is customized, ing Olympic champion Chloe Kim of data-driven and guided one-on-one. the United States. Everything is measurable here. It’s “To be competitive at the Olym- really about yourself and targets pics, you definitely need break- where you need to improve urgent- throughs each and every time,” said ly,” Liu, a halfpipe silver medalist at Liu, who was beaten to silver by Kim the 2018 Winter Olympics in South by an 8.5-point margin in the final at Korea, said in an online interview the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang.