Winter Olympics: Check out the youngest stars set to shine at the Games
- Published
Meet Russian Kamila Valieva - at just 15 years old, she is a big star in the figure skating world. Valieva has already won a gold medal for her routine in the women's free skate at the Winter Olympics with a whopping score of 178.92 points. And, if a medal wasn't enough, she also broke a record for landing not one, but TWO quadruple jumps!
In freestyle skiing, Matej Svancer, 17, is looking to shine for Team Austria. Originally an alpine skier, Svancer switched to freestyle, and in 2020 he won the big air gold medal at the Winter Youth Olympics aged just 15. Unfortunately, he didn't make it through to the men's freeski big air final at the Games this week, after failing to deliver his trick, the left nosebutter triple cork 1980 safety.
Matty Beniers is one to watch on the ice hockey rink. At 19, the American won gold with Team USA at the World Junior Championships. And, when he isn't impressing on the ice, he enjoys singing and has even appeared in a production of The Sound of Music... talk about multi-talented!
Luge is a winter sport where the athlete lies flat and races down an ice track! It's very quick and requires nerves of steel, but German Anna Berreiter is already the youngest female athlete to win a luge World Cup, doing so in February 2020. Anna is 22 years old and is also a two-time under 23 World Champion. Pretty impressive!
Snowboarder Sofia Nadyrshina is 18 years old and already she is a world and multiple junior world champion! The Russian competed in the last adult World Championships taking home a silver in the parallel giant slalom and a gold in the parallel slalom. Sofia started skiing at an early age but then switched to snowboarding when she was eight.
Dutch speed skater Jutta Leerdam already has three world titles and she's only 23! The star has the nickname 'bommetje', which means bomb in Dutch, because of her powerful skating style. She's definitely one to watch in Beijing.
This is Austrian Johannes Lamparter - he won the senior Nordic Combined world title on his very first go! What is the Nordic Combined event you ask? Well, it's a unique sport made up of ski jumping and cross-country skiing. When he isn't competing, Johannes, 20, enjoys cycling and mountaineering.