Figuring out the future
Pairs skaters Yang Yixi and Deng Shunyang execute a routine during a media day training session at the Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing earlier this month. XINHUA Both starting at a youth gymnastics program in their native Guangxi province, the 17-year-old Yang and her 20-year-old partner Deng, made a bold decision in 2018 to switch to a winter sport that they'd never tried, believing that their fitness, strength and agility honed on mats and bars would help on ice. Their fast progress on ice, highlighted by a bronze-medal finish in their senior international debut at last month's Shanghai Trophy 2024, bodes well for such cross-sport experiments to deliver further breakthroughs. The next invaluable test comes on home ice later this month, when China's youngsters take on the world's best at the Cup of China, the Grand Prix season's sixth and final leg, to be held in Chongqing from Nov 22-24.
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