(AFP photos: Han Xiaopeng celebrated after his victory)

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Han Xiaopeng claimed China's first ever Olympic skiing gold medal with a spectacular second jump in the men's freestyle aerials final of the Turin Games Friday morning (Beijing Time).

The 22-year-old stunned everyone by beating Belarus' Dmitri Dashinski and Russia's Vladimir Lebedev to win his first international title, as well as China's first ever men's title in Winter Olympics.

Ranked first in the qualifying round, Han was second after the first jumps, but his second leap - a back-lay-double-full-full - earned 250.77 points to edge final jumper Dashinski by 2.09 points.

Dashinski had to settle for silver and Lebedev had bronze with 246.76 points.

"I had never thought this would happen," said Han. "I feel like in a dream."

"I think the aerials is designed for Chinese and I'm happy to be the one to make this a reality," said the acrobat-turned-aerialist.

Han's gold made up for the painful loss by the four Chinese women's aerials finalists, who conceded the gold to Swiss Evelyne Leu on Wednesday despite their high World Cup rankings.

(Source: Xinhua)