China’s Qi quint-twists to gold in Olympic men’s aerials

ZHANGJIAKOU, China (AP) — Qi Guangpu of China finally flipped his way onto an Olympic podium in men’s aerials by winning a gold medal after near misses in Sochi and Pyeongchang. Qi cleanly landed a quintuple-twisting triple back flip in the medal round when five of his six competitors tried the same trick and only he did it clean. Qi earned 129 points to easily beating defending champion Oleksandr Abramenko of Ukraine. Ilia Burov of the Russian team downgraded to a quad-twisting triple as the event’s last competitor knowing that a clean back full-full-double full would be enough for the podium. He earned bronze at the second straight Olympics.