A total of 33 young athletes from six regional teams — Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang — participated in the selection, which took place from November 16 to 18 and included both on-land and on-snow components. On the 16th, athletes first underwent on-land tests at Beijing Sport University, covering gymnastics, acrobatics, running, and jumping — all physical assessments designed to evaluate various aspects of their athleticism. From the 17th to the 18th, the on-snow tests were held at the Genting Snow Park in Chongli County, Zhangjiakou, the site of the 2022 Winter Olympics snowboarding competitions. Athletes skied according to the requirements of Pekka, the foreign coach of China’s current national halfpipe snowboarding team, who evaluated and scored their performances.
The participating athletes were born between 2001 and 2006, with the youngest being just 9 years old. It is expected that 16 to 20 athletes will be selected to form the national youth team in preparation for the 2022 Games. Regarding the reason for organizing this selection event, Li Yang, Deputy Director of the Skiing Department One at the Winter Sports Management Center of the General Administration of Sport of China, who was on-site overseeing the selection, stated that although snowboarding has seen continuous achievements in recent years, the development of reserve talent has not been as strong. In order to achieve strong results at the 2022 Winter Olympics on home soil, it was decided to select athletes under the age of 14 to form a national youth team. Through comprehensive support at the national team level, a higher success rate in athlete development is expected.