In the early morning of June 28, Beijing time, the women's 10-meter platform diving final of the Budapest World Swimming Championships ended in an exciting and suspenseful competition.
The most popular Tokyo Olympic champion, Quan Hongchan, lost to teammate Chen Yuxi with the slightest disadvantage of 0.3 points, and their rankings at the Olympics were reversed.
Together with the preliminaries, the semi-finals and the two team test matches before the trip to Hungary, Chen Yuxi, who seemed to have a clear gap with Quan Hongchan in last year's Olympic Games and National Games, won five consecutive duels between the two. It's no accident.
Adolescence is a sensitive period of development for female divers
In addition to Chen Yuxi's rich experience in competitions, calm personality, more mature, stable performance, etc., Quan Hongchan's ability to roll back, especially the ability to roll backwards slightly decreased, which is one of the reasons.
In diving competitions, especially in women's platform competitions, the development of athletes has a significant impact on movements.
Only by dealing with this issue very disciplinedly and scientifically can we keep the peak period of female diving athletes for a longer period of time.
Let's talk about this from a scientific point of view.
Diving is a skillful event, and it has high requirements for athletes' body composition. Women's diving, especially the weight control of platform athletes, has always been the most concerned issue for coaches and athletes themselves.
Body weight is the total weight of body composition, including body fat (fat mass) and lean mass (lean mass).
Lean body mass is positively correlated with physical strength, aerobic capacity and maximum oxygen intake, so athletes should try to lose fat and maintain lean body mass.
However, when girls develop during puberty, fat will increase. If they are not controlled, it will not only be difficult to improve their grades, but also difficult to stabilize.
Compared with other sports, the diving time is very short, so more emphasis is placed on the coordination of speed, strength and coordination, especially the lower limb bounce ability and waist and abdominal ability.
Adolescence is a sensitive period for the development of athletic qualities. There are differences between men and women, and the difference is more obvious after the age of 13.
Due to factors such as genetics, nutrition and sports training, it will affect the process of puberty, and the development of motor systems such as muscles and bones has a great impact on physical fitness, especially strength.
There is also the confusion caused by the increase in height. Just imagine, let Quan Hongchan and a female basketball player toss down from the platform. Who will have more tossing cycles, a smaller tossing radius, and a lighter body?
The answer is obvious.
Therefore, the increase in height will have a negative impact on the necessary scoring factors such as tossing, turning, aerial posture, entering the water, etc. Chinese female platform jumpers are all famous early, many of them are around 13 or 14 years old, and then they will become famous. Developmental and growth problems will inevitably be encountered.
Quan Hongchan's height increased significantly by 5 to 8 cm
Compared with the Tokyo Olympics and the Shaanxi National Games, Quan Hongchan's height has increased significantly. Although there is no exact data, according to the reports and predictions of several domestic media reporters on the front line, there is an increase of 5 to 8 cm.
Why did Quan Hongchan and Chen Yuxi pair up at the World Championships?
In addition to technical factors, the two are far ahead, and the stature is becoming more and more consistent and well-matched, and it is also the reason why they seem to be more in sync in terms of synchronization.
Last year, Quan Hongchan was obviously smaller than Chen Yuxi and Zhang Jiaqi.
Height growth is an objective reality and cannot be suppressed deliberately. The amount of training is also scientifically allocated. It is not advisable to increase the amount of training to suppress physical development.
Then a reasonable control of diet, especially the intake of high-energy snacks is inevitable.
Quan Hongchan has done a good job in this area because she has an experienced coach in this area - Chen Ruolin.
Women's platform jumpers can be said to have the fastest changes in all diving events. The "springboard queen" Guo Jingjing can dominate in two Olympic cycles, and Wu Minxia can insist that all three Olympic Games have medals and gold medals, but women's platform jumpers insist on two or three Olympic Games. Cycles, especially those who can defend their title at the Olympics, are very rare.
Chen Ruolin can pass on the successful experience to the younger sisters
Only Chen Ruolin did it, she jumped from Beijing in 2008 to Rio in 2016 and won 5 Olympic gold medals.
The secret of Chen Ruolin's body shape is to strictly control her diet. The story of "persisting on not eating dinner for a year" was widely circulated, and it does exist.
With a large amount of training, she can control her diet like this, and use scientific methods to replenish energy to overcome the temptation of snacks for girls. Under the supervision of her coach Ren Shaofen, Chen Ruolin really did it under her own strict self-discipline.
Now, Chen Ruolin will pass on her experience to Quan Hongchan.
Chen Yuxi has done a better job in this regard. From 16 years old to 17 years old, there is basically no change in his body shape.
Zhang Jiaqi is 18 years old, and her movements are obviously not as good as when she first became famous, so she can only compete in the non-Olympic events of the World Championships except for Quan Hongchan and Chen Yuxi.
This is the objective result of development.
Zhang Jiaqi is a representative of untimely birth. This little girl in Beijing was born in 2004. She was too young at the Rio Olympics. At the 2017 World Championships, she dominated the domestic women's platform, but because of FINA regulations, she was 13 years old and could not participate. World Championships.
That year, she won the single and double women's platform diving gold medal in the National Games and the 2018 World Cup champion.
Zhang Jiaqi's coach is also Ren Shaofen. When she won the World Cup, she calmly analyzed the Beijing Youth Daily reporter, worried about Xiao Jiaqi's development, and made it clear that it would be good for her to participate in the Olympic Games.
Sure enough, Ren Shaofen's words came true.
In the 2019 Gwangju World Championships, 14-year-old Chen Yuxi replaced Zhang Jiaqi as the main force.
If it wasn't for the postponement of the Olympics, Zhang Jiaqi would have competed on the single women's platform to compete with Chen Yuxi for the championship.
As a result, the talented Quan Hongchan was born a year later, and Zhang Jiaqi could only participate in the double competition.
Good seedlings have emerged one after another in the field of women's platform. One reason is the emergence of Chinese diving talents, and the adverse impact of development on athletes is also an important factor.
Small and light are always the unique advantages of female platform players. The Chinese diving team pays great attention to the selection of materials.
Therefore, while training hard and diligently during the developmental period, it is equally important to control the physical growth and diet.
Judging from the development of diving in China, especially women's platform diving, it is inevitable for everyone to love Quan Hongchan and Chen Yuxi, but it is two years before the Paris Olympics. One of them is no accident.
The Chinese diving team must first ensure that it sends the highest level of players to participate in the world competition as the benchmark.
If Quan Hongchan and Chen Yuxi want to "keep their youth forever", they must work hard and achieve self-discipline that is difficult for ordinary people to achieve.