China's freestyle skiing aerials team arrived in Beijing on Tuesday bearing gold from the World Championships in Ruka, Finland.

Li Nina claimed China's first-ever World Championships gold medal in freestyle skiing, offering golden hopes for next year's Turin Winter Olympic Games.

Teammate Guo Xinxin won the bronze.

"The gold medal earned by Li Nina could be called a milestone in the history of China's freestyle skiing," said Gao Xuedong, director of Skiing Department of China's Winter Sports Administrative Center.

The 22-year-old Li, who finished fifth at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002, also dominated the World Cup for the entire season by winning half of the 12 stops. She topped the final rankings with a lead of more than 400 points on Australia's Lydia Ierodiaconouh, one of China's traditional rivals in aerials.

"Li's titles in this season's World Cup tournament and World Championships earned our freestyle skiers a great deal of confidence for the coming Winter Olympics," said Gao, who attributes this season's successes to new training methods brought in by foreign coaches.

In the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, Xu Nannan won China's first Olympic medal in freestyle skiing with a silver in the women's aerials. But with an injured Xu out of the Salt Lake City picture, China came home empty-handed.

That loss was followed by an even worse season in 2003-2004.

"Because of so many injuries among our talented skiers, such as Xu and World Cup winner Wang Jiao and men's veteran Ou Xiaotao, the aerials team was at low ebb last season," said Gao.

A stamina coach was imported in the latter half of last year, bringing in new methods that have substantially reduced injuries.

A Canadian techniques coach has also been working with the team since last December.

"The new coach helped me a lot with the specific techniques, which improved my confidence even more," said Li after winning the World Championship.

(China Daily March 23, 2005)