(East-West Question) How does China, a "latecomer" to ice and snow sports, stand out from the siege?
China News Agency, Beijing, February 12th: How to stand out from the encirclement in China, the "latecomer" of ice and snow sports?
"China News Weekly" reporter Yang Zhijie
In 1980, China participated in the Winter Olympics for the first time, with zero medals in the first decade and zero gold medals in the second decade.
In the third decade, China won 3 golds, 4 silvers and 2 bronzes in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and began to show its strength in competing for gold and silver in a few sports such as short track speed skating.
Another decade ushered in the Beijing Winter Olympics cycle.
The Winter Olympics have been held for nearly a hundred years. In Canada, Norway, the United States, Germany, Russia and other ice and snow sports, how can the late Chinese team break through?
Recently, China News Agency "East and West Questions" interviewed a number of historical witnesses to sort out the history of China's Winter Olympics.
On the evening of February 4, the opening ceremony of the 24th Winter Olympic Games was held at the Beijing National Stadium.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Mao Jianjun
from 0 to 1
Ye Qiaobo, one of the benchmark figures in the history of the Chinese Winter Olympics.
At the 1992 Winter Olympics, 28-year-old Ye Qiaobo won two silver medals in the 500-meter and 1,000-meter speed skating events, breaking through the history of zero medals in the Chinese Winter Olympics.
Ye Qiaobo experienced the darkest and most confusing first 10 years after China joined the Winter Olympics.
On October 25, 1979, the International Olympic Committee restored China's legal status in the international Olympic movement.
Only 4 months later, China will participate in the US Winter Olympics.
In 1980, China urgently formed a team of 28 athletes to participate in 17 individual competitions in 5 sports including speed skating and figure skating.
"Except for speed skating Cao Guifeng, who won the 16th place, all other events were basically at the bottom." Ye Qiaobo recalled.
In 1985, Ye Qiaobo joined the national speed skating training team. At that time, there were very few domestic ice and snow sports athletes.
China's first participation in the Winter Olympics has stimulated Ye Qiaobo and his teammates, who are determined to win a better place in the Winter Olympics.
But at that time, ice and snow events had a history of a hundred years abroad, and the gap between China and Europe and the United States, which was just starting, was all-round.
At that time, Ye Qiaobo only had one pair of skates.
Before the 1992 Winter Olympics, she participated in a World Cup competition. Before the competition, the ice tube suddenly fell off. Temporarily changing shoes would result in no time to break in with the skates.
She found a local auto repair shop, but no one could weld ice skates.
In a hurry, Ye Qiaobo gestured to the clerk and asked for tools such as electric welding and soldering tin, which were welded according to the coach's method according to the impression, "I still won two gold medals the next day."
In 1994, Ye Qiaobo won the third place in the Winter Olympics with an injury.
Photo by Zhao Tongjie issued by China News Agency
In addition to poor training conditions, Chinese athletes lack scientific training methods and systems.
Before the 1970s, the improvement of competitive sports performance mainly depended on the increase of training volume, but since then, it has mostly benefited from the understanding and application of the scientific training system.
Ye Qiaobo is good at speed skating for short distances of 500 meters and 1000 meters.
Her advantage is strong explosiveness, but she has been plagued by insufficient endurance for a long time - her speed dropped very fast in the last 100 meters of the 500 meters and the last 200 meters of the 1000 meters.
In 1989, she happened to meet a couple of coaches of a Dutch speed skating club while competing abroad.
The Netherlands is a speed skating powerhouse, so Ye Qiaobo consulted them.
"It was only then that I learned that the most crucial secret is shifting." Ye Qiaobo said.
The Dutch coach told her that when your heart beats fast and you have trouble breathing, your muscles build up a lot of lactic acid, and you need to stimulate it more intensely.
Repeated stimulation and repeated breakthrough of the limit can improve the problem of slowing down in the back of the game.
"In addition, the Netherlands adopts a short-cycle training plan, even in units of weeks." Ye Qiaobo's overall quality was very good, and the changes brought about by the more targeted new training methods are very significant.
Before participating in the 1992 Winter Olympics, Ye Qiaobo had won 9 gold medals in world events.
She is full of confidence in winning the first gold medal at the Winter Olympics.
But in the 500-meter speed skating final at the Winter Olympics, she was bumped by a foreign competitor and lost to an American by 0.18 seconds.
The referee did not call the opponent a foul, Ye Qiaobo refused to accept it, and chased the referee with a knife cover, but due to the large field, the opponent quickly disappeared from the crowd.
But this silver medal brought the first Winter Olympic medal to the Chinese team, achieving a breakthrough from 0 to 1.
Tactical breakout
In 1993, Li Chengjiang, a 14-year-old teenager from Changchun, Jilin Province, was selected for the national figure skating training team, and three years later he was selected for the national team.
Figure skating consists of various elements such as jumps, spins, steps, music, and choreography.
China's figure skating has long "heavy difficulty and neglect performance", which reached its peak during Li Chengjiang's period.
In 1998, Guo Zhengxin was the first athlete in the world to go out on the ice for four weeks after the completion of the Olympic Games, and then for two weeks. Zhang Min, Li Yunfei and Li Chengjiang all achieved world-class jumping difficulty.
In 2003, Chinese athlete Li Chengjiang won the third place in the men's single skating final of the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Wu Zhonglin
Li Chengjiang said that this was an early "tactic" of the national team.
If China wants to catch up with Russia, the United States, Canada and other powerful figure skating countries, it needs to find a way.
At that time, the difficulty score was an important point in international competitions, and the national team decided to "open the country from the difficulty level".
Tactics worked.
At the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, China won three fully-qualified seats, won the bronze medal in pair skating, and won the world championship pair skating championship.
Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo won China's first world championship in pair skating at the World Championships that year.
In 2002, short track speed skater Yang Yang won China's first gold medal at the Winter Olympics.
When Zhang Hui, an athlete from Heilongjiang Province, saw the news, he chose to switch from speed skating to short track speed skating.
In 2008, Zhang Hui was elected to the national team, and half a year later, her name appeared in the World Cup squad.
What's even more surprising is that she formed a 3,000-meter relay team with Wang Meng, Zhou Yang, and Liu Qiuhong, and broke the world record in the semi-finals for the first time participating in the World Cup.
"I am lucky to catch up with the Wang Meng era." Zhang Hui told reporters.
In addition to the guidance of Coach Li Yan, in her opinion, Wang Meng played a more critical role in the 3000-meter relay.
At that time, Wang Meng had an absolute dominant position in the world short track speed skating competition; in the team, Wang Meng was also a "soul figure".
In 2010, in the women's 500-meter short track speed skating competition at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Chinese athlete Wang Meng easily led the competition and won the championship.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Sheng Jiapeng
Zhang Hui and his teammates found that the Chinese team has several times more World Cup champions than South Korea, but they lost to South Korea as soon as they arrived at the Winter Olympics.
Before the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Sun Linlin, Wang Meng, Zhang Hui and Zhou Yang used their spare time to watch the video of the game repeatedly, analyzing the skills, sliding routes, pushing and handover habits of each Korean player, and even the strength of the shots and the speed of the corners. Wait.
"We have won championships in all events in the previous World Cup. As long as we don't wrestle or foul, it is impossible not to win this championship." Zhang Hui said.
Finally, they crossed the finish line second, and the South Korean players had already waved the national flag to celebrate.
Coach Li Yan immediately appealed. In the end, the referee ruled that the Korean player fouled after watching the replay and disqualified the game. The Chinese team won the championship, breaking the Korean team's 16-year monopoly.
"Ice is strong and snow is weak"
"Strong ice and weak snow" has always been a major dilemma in the development of China's ice and snow projects.
China has won 13 gold medals in the 6 Winter Olympics, including 12 in ice events and 1 in snow events, but the total number of gold medals in snow events in the Winter Olympics accounts for 70% of the total number of gold medals in the Winter Olympics.
This constrains China's Winter Olympics performance.
For a long time, Heilongjiang and Jilin have been the "cradles" of China's ice and snow events, supplying most of the talents for the national team.
Ice sports are prosperous in Heilongjiang and Kyrgyzstan, but it was not easy to ski in the early days.
Snow sports are greatly affected by climate, mountain shape, geology, and site, and require more professional equipment.
Until 2017, there were no alpine ski resorts in China.
Ye Qiaobo mentioned that in the 1980s, there were no cable cars on the snow-capped mountains, and athletes practiced skiing and could only ski twice in the morning.
"The snow was below the knees. The athletes wore snow boots and carried very heavy sleds to climb the mountain step by step. It took 50 minutes to climb to the top of the mountain and tens of seconds to slide down."
According to the "White Paper on China's Ski Industry", in 1996, there were only 11 ski resorts in China, but the market began to increase rapidly after 2010, and the total number of ski resorts reached 770 in 2019.
This is also related to the early Chinese breakout path.
Under the guidance of the "Outline of the Olympic Glory Plan", China will choose projects with low requirements for venues, such as figure skating, short track speed skating, speed skating, etc.
In the past few years, China has built indoor ski resorts to extend snow training time and improve training conditions.
More importantly, cross-border and cross-project training of talents.
The earliest cross-border selection of freestyle skiing aerial skills: At the 2006 Winter Olympics, Han Xiaopeng won the freestyle skiing men's aerial skills competition.
Sledding has high requirements on athletes' upper body strength and core strength. The Chinese sled team has selected some athletes in kayak, javelin, shot put and other track and field events in various provinces and cities.
In 2006, Chinese player Han Xiaopeng won the gold medal in aerial skills at the Turin Winter Olympics, winning the second gold for the Chinese team.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Wu Zhonglin
Beijing Winter Olympics time
In January 2022, 30 years after Ye Qiaobo won the first medal in the China Winter Olympics, her documentary short film "The Winner is Fearless" was launched. Speaking of the 1994 Winter Olympics, she fought for the bronze medal in the 1000m despite injuries. Returning to China in a wheelchair created the "Qiaobo Spirit".
At the end of the video, Ye Qiaobo met Gu Ailing, a "genius girl" in the post-00s sports world.
Today, athletes can enjoy the sport itself more.
Gu Ailing told Ye Qiaobo that she skied because of her love, she could feel freedom and creativity, and she could improve her self-confidence.
The Olympic spirit of the two eras meets and inherits here.
On February 8, Chinese athlete Gu Ailing won the championship in the women's freestyle ski jumping final of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics held at the Beijing Shougang Ski Jumping platform.
The picture shows Gu Ailing celebrating.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Mao Jianjun
As the host this time, China has made breakthroughs in many projects.
Alpine skiing and ice hockey, which have always been short boards, have all qualified for the Winter Olympics for the first time.
A group of young teenagers are emerging.
Gu Ailing is the most concerned athlete at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Last year, 17-year-old Su Yiming won the men's snowboard ski jumping World Cup for the first time in China, and is highly anticipated at this Winter Olympics.
On February 7, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics snowboard event men's slope obstacle course final was held at Zhangjiakou Yunding Ski Park.
China's Su Yiming won the silver medal in the men's slope obstacle course.
The picture shows Chinese player Su Yiming in the game.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Tomita
Regarding the traditional gold-winning events, Ni Huizhong, director of the Winter Sports Management Center of the General Administration of Sports of the People's Republic of China, said that the short track speed skating team will play the main role as the Chinese delegation can achieve in the Beijing Winter Olympics.
At this Winter Olympics, Chinese men's ice hockey was qualified for the Winter Olympics for the first time. Gao Hongqun, deputy director of Qiqihar Municipal Sports Bureau, told reporters that ice hockey allows physical collisions, and European and American athletes have inherent advantages.
In addition, the Chinese ice hockey team's opponents in the draw, Canada, the United States, and Germany, are all in the top group, and China has never played against them.
No one can shake the position of these countries in ice hockey.
"Because we can't shake it, do we stop playing? No. Everyone recognizes their level, but each country still plays ice hockey, and more importantly, surpasses ourselves." Gao Hongqun said.
There is also the spirit of cooperation in collective sports, "everyone coordinate, cooperate and make up for each other".
"We have made history by appearing in the Winter Olympics," said Gao Hongqun.
(End) (Intern Lei Xiaolin also contributed to this article)