With the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics approaching, the popularity of winter sports is gradually heating up in China. When it comes to China's winter advantages, we have to mention figure skating, more precisely - figure skating pair skating. When it comes to double skating, the names of Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo are about to come out.
In 1992, Zhao Hongbo's then double skating partner Xie Maomao retired. Therefore, Yao Bin, the coach of the figure skating team, chose Shen Xuelai as Zhao Hongbo's partner from more than 100 female athletes to practice pair skating. When this thin little girl stood in front of Zhao Hongbo, who was 5 years older than her, Zhao Hongbo had a disdainful face: "Try it, practice for a month first." Such an attitude deeply stimulated Shen Xue, who was not willing to accept defeat: "Practice for a month and practice for a month!" ”
Whoever thinks of this practice is more than a month; this hand-holding is a lifetime. After four months of combined practice, they won the national championship. Since then, the two names of Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo have always appeared together in major competitions, and the national championship is only their starting point.
At the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, the Chinese team that missed the pair skating event for two consecutive years sent Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo to participate, which was also the first winter Olympic journey of the two. Happily, they competed in the Winter Olympics for the first time and finally finished fifth with their outstanding performances. In the next year's World Figure Skating Grand Prix Finals, they won the championship with perfect performance. With this result, they advanced to the ranks of the world's top athletes in the pair skating event at that time.
At the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, the much-talked about Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo came up with a unique skill- throwing around the jump, a difficult move that no player had ever tried in the competition. If this is successfully completed in the competition, they will have the opportunity to compete for the title medal of this Winter Olympic Games. When Shin Snow fell on the ice and everyone thought she had successfully completed the action, she still fell while sliding out.
"I thought I had become, and everyone thought I had succeeded. Maybe I still felt a little regretful at the time, but now that I think about it, I don't feel so sorry. I did everything I could, and I was prepared to fail before I went on the pitch, and how I would remedy it after I failed. ”
Although the ice fell wrong, but through timely remediation and mental adjustment, they successfully completed the remaining difficult actions, and finally won the third place in the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, which is also the first Olympic medal in the history of Chinese figure skating pair skating.
A month later, at the World Championships, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, who had worked together for ten years, first ranked first in the short program, and then perfectly performed the masterpiece of their careers in the free skate - "Turandot". After the nine referees on the scene unanimously scored the first place, they became the first pair of world champions in the history of Chinese pair skating.
For athletes, injuries are a topic that can never be avoided. For Zhao Hongbo, the injury he faced was quite fatal. In 2005, during a training session, Zhao Hongbo broke his Achilles tendon. At the time, even coach Yao Bin was not entirely sure that they would be able to appear at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.
For athletes, however, they are also more like miracle creators. From surgery to recovery to finally stand on the Olympic field, Zhao Hongbo took as little as six months. When the music of "Madame Butterfly" sounded on the Winter Olympic field, the audience saw not only the beauty of figure skating, but also the strength of athletes. In the end, the two won a second Bronze Medal at the Winter Olympics.
From the original "Mulan" to "Yellow River", from "Turandot" to "Madame Butterfly", the classic programs performed by Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo in their careers are telling love stories. And more than ten years of fighting side by side, sharing weal and woe, the love in reality has also quietly arrived. At the World Championships in March 2007, the melody of French composer Manet's work "Meditation" fell, and Zhao Hongbo proposed to Shen Xue on one knee, and the two embraced each other deeply in the closing action.
In 2009, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, who had faded out of the game for two years, returned to the national team. For the pair of players who have been making history in their careers, they still have an unfinished dream in their hearts - to stand on the podium of the Olympic champions. The goal of this return is to point to the Winter Olympic champions.
In 2010, Shen Xue, 32, and Zhao Hongbo, 37, embarked on their fourth Olympic journey. In the pair skating showdown, another pair of pair skaters of the Chinese team who took the lead in the appearance, Pang Qing and Tong Jian, ensured that the final champion would belong to the Chinese team with a set of almost perfect programs that made the audience stand up and applaud.
This allowed Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, who played last, to play lightly, and finally they won the first Olympic gold medal of their careers and the first Olympic gold medal in the history of Chinese figure skating with the record of the highest total score in pair skating. At the same time, it broke the 46-year history of the Monopoly of Figure Skating and Figure Skating Winter Olympic Champions by Soviet and Russian athletes.
In the careers of Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo from 1992 to 2010, they won a total of 1 gold medal and 2 bronze medals in the Winter Olympics, 3 gold medals, 3 silver medals and 1 bronze medal at the World Championships, and 6 gold medals, 1 silver medal and 2 bronze medals in the Grand Prix Finals. To this day, no one has surpassed it.
After the golden duo retired, they still made their own contributions to Chinese figure skating in their careers. At present, Zhao Hongbo, as the head coach of the Chinese figure skating national team, leads a new generation of athletes to continue to compete in various competitions. Shen Xue, as the first chairman of the Chinese Figure Skating Association, also continued to create the history of Chinese figure skating on another occasion.
Taste the glory together, overcome the difficulties together, and at the same time harvest breakthrough after breakthrough for Chinese figure skating, they also harvested beautiful love and happy family. Now, their love crystallization, Zhao Xue'er, has also stepped onto the figure skating arena under the ears of her parents. Zhao Xue'er began to go on ice at the age of 2 and a half, and won the championship of the women's singles enlightenment senior group in the North China Station of the first Chinese Figure Skating Club League in 2018.
Competitive sports will always make people remember the athletes who once stood on the top of sports, and the change of times will always make people involuntarily forget. Although Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo ended their identity as competitive sports athletes, they are now making their own contributions to the country's sports in different identities. Although retired, he never quit.