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Uzbekistan's Chusovkina greeted the audience on August 7 after completing the preliminary round for the women's balance beam event at the Rio Olympics.
Xinhua News Agency reporter Zheng Huansong /photo
Author: China Youth Daily, China Youth Online reporter Li Chenhe
Video Director: Liu Pan
h5 Production: China Youth Media Studio
Manuscript Editor: Jiang Weihuawei
On August 15, at the Rio Olympic Gymnastics Gymnasium, 41-year-old Chusovkina stood on the Olympic field for the seventh time.
Big competitions are always a popular occasion for athletes to retire. Swimming star Phelps, trampoline princess He Wenna, shooting goddess Du Li, rifle veteran Zhu Qinan, all announced the end of their careers in Rio. Their end may be complete or regretful, but they are all in tears.
When Chusovykina was introduced, the audience erupted in applause and cheers as the champions, wearing a pink and white trench coat and hairstyle as she had done 24 years earlier when she represented the CIS for the first Olympic Games in Barcelona, with a short ponytail and bangs on her forehead.
The 41-year-old Uzbekistan athlete has gradually changed from a "gymnastics princess" to a "gymnastics aunt" and now a "gymnastics grandmother". Rio is her seventh Olympics and is rumored to be Chusovkina's farewell match.
Many sports fans say that every time Chusovkina stubbornly stands on the field, it is a surprise. At the end of the game, a video was played on the big screen without warning.
The video begins with a scene from Chusovkina representing the CIS in the Olympics 24 years ago, 17-year-old wearing a black and white robe, pinning a white hairpin on her head, her eyes clear, with a fledgling timidity, and winning the gold medal with her teammates. This was followed by a glorious moment when she won the world championship three times. After that, she competed in the Olympic Games again and again, her face was no longer young, wrinkles climbed up her face, from a fledgling gold medal girl to a second-to-last "gymnastics grandmother".
Finally, the subtitles of the shot give a short and shocking summary of Chusovykina's career so far - "an absolute record in artistic gymnastics".
In addition to the surprise, the audience who looked forward to witnessing the last two jumps of the women's vaulting competition, Chusovykina, may be "disappointed", because although Chusovykina only won the penultimate place in this competition, she smiled at the media and said: Tokyo Olympics, will definitely participate!
She is the oldest gymnast in Olympic history and the first to participate in seven Olympic Games.
This time, she represented her native Uzbekistan. She chose the Puva jump, known as the "Jump of Death", a two-week front flip that was recognized by the International Gymnastics Federation as the most difficult of women's vaulting moves, and only 4 female athletes had done it before.
The spirit of challenge has always flowed in the blood of Chusovkina. When she first started training, she trained with the male players for a year. Before the competition, she told the media: "I know this move is very dangerous. But I love challenges. ”
It was precisely because of the previous challenge to this action that she was able to come to the Rio Olympics. At the 2015 Gymnastics World Championships, Chusovkina tried this move with a difficulty score of 7.0. Because Uzbekistan has only 3 players and is not eligible for team competitions, Chusovkina can only have a chance to step on the stage of the Rio Olympics by reaching the top 3 in individual competitions, or in the top 8 in the individual all-around. In the end, she completed the move and also won a seat at the Rio Olympics.
However, in Rio, her first jump failed — she failed to stand up after landing, a forward roll — a major misstep that left her with a completion score of just 7.933, the lowest of the 16 points in the game.
Failure never left Chusovykina with regret and chagrin, and she smiled and compared her hands to the audience with a heart. This may indicate her motivation and determination to continue to challenge the Tokyo Olympics, and she also wants to win a medal for her country.
"Wait another 4 years", this phrase is always a symbol of the persistence of athletes who have not reached their wishes. This sentence means 4 years of hard and uncertain training, which means sacrificing a lot and giving up a lot. For Chusovykina, who stands "out of place" among young players, the meaning of this sentence may be heavier.
By the time gymnastics rising star Simon Byers, who won at least three medals at the Rio Olympics, was born in 1997, Chusovykina had already won five world-class medals and an Olympic gold medal.
Standing next to her, China's Wang Yan, who finished fifth in the competition, was born in 1999 and is also 17 years old with her son Alyosha.
At the age of 17, it was also the age when Chusovkina won her first gold medal. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, she won the women's gymnastics team championship for the CIS. Previously, she won a bronze medal in vaulting at the World Gymnastics Championships in Paris.
At the age of 22, she married wrestler Bakdal Klopanov and gave birth to her only son, Alyosha, two years later. Family, children, career, everything runs smoothly on the most perfect track.
In 2002, Alyosha was diagnosed with leukemia. In order to provide better treatment for her son, on the advice of the doctor, Chusovykina's family moved to Cologne, Germany.
Despite selling the property and two cars in his hometown and accepting donations from a sports center in Cologne and the International Gymnastics Federation, the $120,000 in treatment fees was too much for the modest family to afford. So, at the age of 24, a 24-year-old age that seems to be an advanced age in gymnastics, Chusovykina, who is already married and has children, returned to the competition, her husband took care of her son full-time, and she began to train with the German national team.
Since then, medals no longer just mean honor for her. Because the prize money for the competition is the only source for her to sustain her son's life. Winning a world championship gold medal can get a prize of 3,000 euros, which means that the war with the disease has more "food and grass".
In a flash, Chusovkina persisted until the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Chusovkina, 33, won the silver medal in the strong jump horse. This is important to her, not only because she competed at an advanced age and achieved good results, not only because the action she won the medal "Chusovkina Jump" is named after herself, but also because it has been a full 16 years since her last Olympic medal , the Barcelona Olympic team gold medal.
But it was by no means the best news of the year. Shortly after returning home from Beijing, she received a call from her son Alyosha's doctor— who had recovered after years of treatment.
"There are medals, no medals, compared to this news, it is not important." Chusovkina said that the happiness brought to her by any sports achievement cannot be compared with the recovery of her son.
If, before the Beijing Olympic Games, Qiusovkina's "You are not good, I dare not be old" jump still has the color of a tragic mother, then since the Beijing Olympic Games, every time she jumps and every flip in the air, she dances for love.
Some people say that once human beings have experienced the feeling of flying in the air, they never want to stop, never stop.
Many of the players who are now training with Chusovkina are younger than her son. For them, Chusovykina is more of a spiritual symbol, infusing them with faith and inspiration.
Many times, Chusovykina said, she wanted to "retire, it's time to retire." However, when she opened her eyes the next morning, gymnastics summoned her to the training ground.
At the 2012 London Olympics, Chusovkina said it would be her last Olympics and that she would retire as a full-time coach after completing the games.
"I announced my retirement and when I woke up the next morning, I was lying in bed and I thought I hadn't done all I wanted to do and I thought I could do more." Chusovkina came to the training ground again and continued to "do more".
She wanted to do something for her country. After the London Olympics, she applied to restore uzbekistan citizenship, and finally, she could represent her country. She played for Germany for 6 years and participated in two Olympic Games, but she has always been the glorious daughter of Uzbekistan.
Chusovykina was elected "Honorary Athlete of the Republic of Uzbekistan" and was widely loved by the people of the country, and she was even printed on a stamp issued in 2001.
"Win a medal for my native Uzbekistan, and if I can do it, then I will never have regrets in my life." She said.
In more than 20 years of gymnastics career, Chusovkina has won 3 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze at the World Championships and 2 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze at the Asian Games. There are 3 movements named after her.
Her current coach is teammate Bozinskaya, who fought alongside at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.
Over time, Boginskaya said, Chusovykina has not gotten worse, but rather better. That's why she's still insisting.
And Boginskaya, who shares a room with Chusovykina, has a glory that no one else can replace - because Bhusovykina is two years older, Boginskaya, who is accustomed to going to bed early, is always ridiculed by her old friend Chusovykina for many years: "Is the 43-year-old grandmother going to sleep?" ”
Boginskaya had planned to train with her old teammates for a year, but when the year expired, they decided to continue to work together to the Rio Olympics.
"The Iron Chusovykina, the Olympic Games of The Flowing Water" is a summary of this gymnastics legend. At the Rio Olympics, she said, she wanted to experiment with herself to see how long she could last before she "did enough." If you jump to 2024, the 49-year-old will write the historical record of participating in 9 Olympic Games.
Chusovkina has successfully demonstrated that age is only a number for people whose dreams are firm enough. As long as you want to have a heart that wants to fly, the wings of your dreams will always be there.