News from our newspaper (Reporter Wang Xiaoxiao) Tonight, the Tokyo Paralympic badminton competition is about to start, but the Chinese team only got 20 minutes to adapt to the venue at noon.
However, the team’s head coach Dong Jiong said in an interview with our reporter yesterday that he was not worried about it: “This is how the game is. There must be various objective difficulties. It depends on how you deal with it.”
According to reports, after the Chinese team arrived in Tokyo, they trained in three time periods: morning, noon, and evening to adapt to the different rhythms of the game. During the game, meals and rest can be arranged according to the time of the game and the shuttle bus.
However, training is conducted in the training hall, and the competition venue, Yoyogi Stadium, was not open to teams until today because of the previous wheelchair rugby competition.
"This is the biggest difficulty we encountered during this trip, and it has never been encountered before in various competitions." Dong Jiong said.
At the same time, the adaptation training is over in the afternoon, and the players participating in this evening have no time to return to the station in the afternoon. They can only rest and relax in the hall.
Badminton matches are highly sensitive to wind. The Chinese team went to the Yoyogi Stadium to participate in the Paralympic Points Contest at the end of 2019, but it was winter and the hall was not air-conditioned.
In order to understand the air-conditioning situation, Dong Jiong specially watched a wheelchair rugby match after arriving in Tokyo. “It feels that the wind is quite strong in the stands, and all the entrances and exits of the stands are open, which also affects the wind. I don’t know how it feels in the stadium. "
At the same time, Dong Jiong mentioned that he had not seen the Japanese team in the training hall these days. "Maybe they have other training bases. The Japanese team had the opportunity to train in the competition hall before the Paralympic Games, but it is understandable that the host has this advantage. "
However, Dong Jiong also said that regardless of the wind problem or the problem of adapting to the short time of the game, it is fair to all non-host teams. "The main thing is to adapt as soon as possible through the group stage." After a few days of training, he felt the physical and mental state of the players. They are all good, they are relatively attentive, and they don’t show too much anxiety about the difficulties. "I also chatted with them during the meal to relieve tension and ask two questions about style. I will tell them the details before the game, and now I will talk about them. Too much can only give them pressure."
Having been in charge of the disabled badminton team for more than ten years, Dong Jiong said that he still trusts the players, "I don’t think there is a problem. To say that a few years ago, these players were relatively'tender', but now they are much more mature. And they are disabled. Human athletes have a good mentality, strong ability to withstand pressure, simple thinking, and not so many distracting thoughts. What I have to do is to pass on the experience of the competition and try to help them play a normal level without leaving any regrets."