A new chapter and a new challenge for Chinese track and field
Our reporter Chen Jiakun
Looking back at 2022, China Athletics has only participated in one international competition in the Oregon World Championships.
The Chinese team won 2 golds, 1 silver and 3 bronzes, ranking fifth in the medal table. Since the 2017 London Athletics World Championships, it has ranked among the top five in the medal table for three consecutive World Championships.
At the Oregon World Championships, Chinese track and field made a historic breakthrough: the men's long jump Wang Jianan and the women's discus Feng Bin won the championship. The results of the two field events were unexpected surprises, writing a new chapter in the history of Chinese track and field, which is of great significance.
At the same time, we must also see that the traditional advantages of women's shot put and race walking are no longer stable.
Achievements and regrets coexist
Affected by the epidemic, most of the main preparations for the Chinese track and field team this year were originally focused on the Hangzhou Asian Games. Due to the postponement of the event, the preparation rhythm of many players was disrupted, which affected the performance of the World Championships to a certain extent.
In the 23 competitions at the Oregon World Championships, Chinese players won a total of 2 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze medals, a total of 6 medals, ranking fifth in the medal list.
Wang Jianan and Feng Bin respectively won the men's long jump and women's discus championships, Gong Lijiao won the silver medal in the women's shot put, Zhu Yaming won the bronze medal in the men's triple jump, Qie Yangshi won the women's 20km race walk and the women's 35km race walk. Bronze medals for each event.
In addition, Liu Shiying, Liu Hong, Song Jiayuan, Li Ling, Li Maocuo and Luo Na all broke into the top eight of their respective events.
Compared with the record of 3 golds, 3 silvers and 3 bronzes in the last World Athletics Championships in Doha, the number of gold medals and medals of the Chinese team has declined this time. The 2 gold medals harvested can be called a surprise, which has a strong breakthrough significance.
In the men's long jump, Wang Jianan reversed all his opponents and won the championship with the last jump of 8.36 meters, becoming the first Chinese player to win the men's long jump world championship.
The Chinese women's discus throw has missed the podium of the World Championships for many years. Feng Bin threw 69.12 meters for the first time in the final, creating the best result in his personal career and finally won the championship. This result also surpassed the American player Allman Tokyo Olympic Games The winning score is 68.98 meters.
Men's triple jump also made a breakthrough, and Zhu Yaming became the first Chinese player to win a medal in this event at the World Championships.
The 31-year-old veteran Qie Yangshi won two bronze medals in the women's race walk of 20 kilometers and 35 kilometers, becoming the first Chinese track and field athlete to win two medals in a single World Championships.
Regrettably, Gong Lijiao, the two-time World Championships champion, Qieyang Shijie and Liu Hong, who are double-insurance racewalkers, missed the World Championships due to their age and condition.
As a traditional advantageous event in Chinese track and field, women's race walking is showing a landslide trend, and the situation is not optimistic.
The women's throwing event lacks talent and is still played by veterans, lack of newcomers, and lack of stable gold points.
Overall, China's competition for gold and silver projects is still narrow in scope, few in number, and insufficient in quantity.
In the case of a substantial increase in the threshold for qualifying for the Paris Olympics, it is very difficult for China's track and field to complete 32 events to qualify for the competition.
Men's sprint calls for newcomers
For the Chinese men's relay team, 2022 is a special year.
At the beginning of the year, the Chinese sprint relay team just won the bronze medal in the men's relay event of the Tokyo Olympics, creating a historical breakthrough in the Chinese men's sprint in the Olympic Games, which can be called a great joy.
As for the lineup of the World Championships, compared with the Tokyo Olympics, only one player has adjusted.
The top three bats are still Tang Xingqiang, Xie Zhenye, and Su Bingtian, but the newcomer Chen Guanfeng took the fourth bat from Wu Zhiqiang.
Compared with Wu Zhiqiang's personal best of 10.18 seconds, Chen Guanfeng once ran 10.06 seconds. However, due to lack of experience in international competitions, he failed to exert his ability to continue accelerating in the final stage of the preliminaries and was overtaken by the two opponents behind.
The Chinese team's final score of 38.83 seconds was more than one second slower than the 37.79 seconds they won the bronze medal in the Olympics.
At the World Championships, only Su Bingtian qualified for the 100m and only Xie Zhenye qualified for the 200m.
Judging from the handover situation of the four players, they have not reached their best condition.
Su Bingtian ran the "season best" of 10.15 seconds in the men's 100-meter preliminaries, and 10.30 seconds in the semi-finals, ranking eighth in the group.
Xie Zhenye also stopped in the semi-finals in the 200 meters, and finally ran 20 seconds 41, failing to continue his achievements in the men's 200 meters final at the Doha World Championships.
The level of the relay is based on the absolute strength of the individual. It is difficult for Chinese athletes to achieve excellent results if they are not in the best condition.
From the 2015 World Championships to last year's Tokyo Olympics, the Chinese men's relay team ushered in a peak period.
In addition to reaching the finals of the 3 World Championships and achieving a breakthrough of zero medals, the Rio Olympics and the Tokyo Olympics also reached the finals and won a bronze medal in Tokyo historicly.
With the stop of the men's 4×100m relay preliminaries at the Oregon World Championships, the Chinese men's relay team's record of reaching the finals of five consecutive World Championships came to an end.
As the sports career of Su Bingtian's generation of athletes comes to an end, he is more eager to hope that young athletes will have more competition experience.
"I hope the young people will take over well after we retire. Because this project is really difficult to develop, but I don't want to see it go down again in a short time." Su Bingtian said earnestly.
The coverage of the competition needs to be broadened
In the medal table of the World Athletics Championships, if the Chinese team wants to consolidate its position in the second group and further advance its ranking, it must strive for greater achievements in track events.
The participation coverage of the Chinese team is still too narrow, and almost half of the projects cannot be covered. Even among the traditional advantageous projects or key layout projects, there are not many projects that can reach the full participation.
In order to strive for more projects to participate in the competition, ensure that there are enough people to participate in the competition, and make the advantageous projects bigger and stronger, so as to further strive for gold medals on the basis of ensuring medals.
China Athletics will continue to implement the strategy of "going out and inviting in" during the Paris Olympic cycle, allowing more athletes to train and compete in countries and regions with developed track and field, and at the same time allow more foreign high-level coaches to enter the Chinese team to coach.
The 2023 Budapest World Championships and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games are approaching challenges again and again. Only by facing up to the difficulties and forging ahead can the Chinese track and field achieve satisfactory results.
"Beijing Daily" December 29, 2022, Page 7