Li Junhui / Liu Yuchen, who is considered to have a "big game life", as the "only seedling" of the Chinese men's doubles at the Tokyo Olympic Games, marched all the way to the final, achieving the feat of reaching the final of the Chinese men's doubles games for four consecutive Olympic Games.
However, in the final match on the evening of the 31st, Li Junhui / Liu Yuchen suddenly lost, 0-2 (18-21, 12-21) defeat to Chinese Taipei's Li Yang / Wang Qilin, regrettably won the men's doubles silver medal. The whole game took only 34 minutes...
Li Junhui /Liu Yuchen.
Birthday in the Olympic Village, borrow a luck
The new generation of Kuniyu is always able to get out of the circle in strange ways.
After the "C language" of women's doubles player Chen Qingchen came out of the circle, "powerful", "lucky Lucky" and "Cow You" became a novel way for fans to cheer for the national feather. Before the Olympic badminton men's doubles final, the old terriers of "Li Junhui's attempted stripping" and "Li Junhui stripped and shook his head" once again dominated the screen.
People are looking forward to seeing the famous scene of the twin towers duo stripping celebration again.
"Go all out, there is no way back" - the night before the final, Liu Yuchen updated Weibo. Before that, he also ran to his teammate Wang Yilu, who had just won the mixed doubles championship, to leave a message on Weibo to "borrow a luck", and was found by sharp-eyed netizens and pushed him up.
Just a few days ago, on July 25, Liu Yuchen just spent his 26th birthday in the Olympic Village – Li Junhui / Liu Yuchen got the name "Twin Towers" because of their height of more than 1 meter 9. But among fans, everyone prefers to call Liu Yuchen "Fat Liu" or "Tutu" (because the image is quite similar to the domestic animation "Big Ears Tutu").
Born in Beijing, Liu Yuchen was originally a swimmer, and only began badminton training at the age of 7 under the influence of his father. His outstanding height and length of arms and flexible running have made his partner with Li Junhui a rare wizard in the world of badminton in recent years.
"I was really lucky. The Soup Cup in Kunshan in 2016 was the first big tournament I participated in, when we worked hard, but lost to the Korean team at 8-4, which was a pity. ”
"In the 2017 Gold Coast Su Cup, we won the Japanese team in the semi-finals, and it really felt like the world champion had a play. Although he lost it in the end, he still affirmed his own play. ”
"At the 2017 World Championships, we played as the top seed and were hit by a round trip, and it was really sad. Through these defeats, I accumulated a lot of lessons, made significant progress in my mentality, and finally turned these setbacks and failures into the three stars on my chest now - the Soup Cup in 2018 and the World Championships in 2019, and the Su Cup in 2019, and I won it back with my own hands. Liu Yuchen said.
Brutal Olympic arenas
The twin towers of the Olympic Games for the first time, all the way to the triumphant song.
After qualifying from the group, the Danish duo of Astrap/Rasmussen was eliminated 3-0 in the quarter-finals. In the semi-finals against Malaysian rivals Tse Ding Feng/Su Weiyi, the match was once very anxious, and the twin towers won 24-22, 21-13 to advance to the final.
But behind Li Junhui/Liu Yuchen's all the way to Kai, there is the extraordinary cruelty of the Olympic Games.
In another match, the Indonesian "Dad" duo, the second seed in men's doubles and the legendary veteran Ashan/Hendra lost 0-2 to Chinese Taipei's Li Yang/Wang Qilin after only 28 minutes of resistance in the men's doubles semifinals.
This is the third Olympic Games of veteran Hendra, the first with Quito in 2008, failing to qualify in 2012, and playing with Asan as the second seed in 2016, but losing to the Japanese duo of Daiichi Endo/Kenichi Hayakawa and China's Shiba Biao/Hong Wei in the group stage, finishing third in the group and missing out.
After losing the semi-finals, Hendra said: "This is the hardest Olympic games I think, I'm sorry I only had to play here, but we will still try our best to fight for the bronze medal. ”
But just before the men's doubles final, 37-year-old veteran Hendra fought to the last drop of blood, still losing 1-2 to Malaysia's Xie Dingfeng / Su Weiyi and missing the Olympic podium.
In the final, Li Junhui / Liu Yuchen also lost themselves...
Li Yang/Wang Qilin combination.
The arrival of Master Brother Fu Haifeng
Affected by the epidemic, in the past 18 months, The National Feather has given up all international competitions, in addition to the lack of access to the competition status, the world ranking of the national players has also declined.
In the end, in the 5 individual events, only the men's doubles could not compete in full, and could only send the pair of Li Junhui / Liu Yuchen to fight alone.
But for the Twin Towers, they were never just two people. Before Guo Yu's trip to Tokyo, fu Haifeng, the two-time Olympic men's doubles champion, also came to Chengdu Shuangliu Base as an advisor to the expert group.
This is the longest time that Fu Haifeng has stayed in the national team since retiring from retirement, and the arrival of "Bao Ge" has also made the preparation of the "Twin Towers" more fighting spirit and cohesion.
As the only national feather in the Tokyo Olympic Games, Fu Haifeng is well aware of the responsibility and mission that Liu Yuchen and Li Junhui carry. In the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, in the case of not being optimistic about the outside world, Fu Haifeng and Zhang Nan walked step by step to the championship podium, and he who knew the best way to counterattack, subtly injected a lot of blood and passion into the "Twin Towers".
Although there was no competition, The training of The National Feather had plenty of time to be more systematic.
What scares Liu Yuchen the most is the fixed morning exercise and track and field running lap - starting from 80 laps every month, it has become a training program that he and Li Junhui can't move, making up for their past shortcomings.
Liu Yuchen and Ma Long took a group photo.
Role model, Malone
The Tokyo Olympic Games have allowed more people to know Xu Xin, the "People's Artist" and "Happy Comedian" in the table tennis industry. In the badminton team, Liu Yuchen is undoubtedly the hidden dan player.
In addition to training, drinking kung fu tea and panning hand strings is Liu Yuchen's Weibo painting style. But as a "post-95", the high-pressure training competition will not affect his collection of One Piece hands, or put on a mask to make a delicate "pig boy".
And being in such a gold medal division as Guoyu, I did not expect Liu Yuchen to chase the stars but chased after the table tennis team next door.
"Summoning up enough courage to take a picture with Malone when there are few people." Finally got my wish. Hope to be as good as you are. At the beginning of this year, in the strength room of the General Training Bureau, he met Ma Long, the captain of the national table tennis team, and Tutu finally succeeded in chasing the stars.
In Tokyo, the 32-year-old Marlon achieved his own double slam, becoming the first person in the history of table tennis to win a men's singles title. Such a great achievement will also become the star that Liu Yuchen will always chase in his career.
Even if they lose in Tokyo, they still love the future.
Author: The Paper's contributing writer Cha Fu
Source: The Paper