In the latest race video, Hong Kong short track speed skater Zhu Dingwen put his hands behind his back, glided lightly on the ice surface, and took advantage of the corner to accelerate away from several players behind him, which was quite imposing.
Fading off his race suit, he was back to the shy teenager who laughed and had two dimples. A native of Hong Kong, but his mouth was Northeast Mandarin, he scratched his head in embarrassment, "Or do you want to repeat it, I seem to speak too much Northeast Chinese?" The next moment, he unconsciously pronounced "all" into two voices, making everyone laugh, and he seemed quite innocent: "I have been training in Changchun for a few years, and it has become like this." ”
Photo by China News Service reporter Zhang Wei
When he first arrived in the northeast, he couldn't understand a word when others spoke quickly, and he couldn't eat the northeast cuisine that was accustomed to heavy taste. However, in a few years, he fell in love with Northeast cuisine, spicy and hot, occasionally came to a few spicy strips to relieve his hunger, and also met three or five close friends.
Since there is no international standard short track speed skating training ground in Hong Kong, Zhu Dingwen and his team went north and trained in Changchun, Beijing, Dongguan and other places all year round. "It's really not easy for our team, we haven't been home for the New Year in four or five years. All we do is to one day be able to reach the Winter Olympics and compete with the world's top athletes. ”
In the past four or five years, or even longer, Zhu Dingwen has been tirelessly running on the road of preparing for the Olympic Games. At present, he is about to embark on the winter Olympic games for the first time as he wishes, and on the final sprint day, he will put his mind at ease, doing some land physical training and learning ice skills every day at the Hong Kong Institute of Sport.
He is also humble: "I am not the best and fastest athlete, and it is the greatest honor of my life to represent Hong Kong in China at the Winter Olympics in my own country." I hope to achieve a good result with the best training state I usually have. ”
Courtesy of respondents
The youngster debuted at the Winter Olympics
When he learned that he had qualified for the Beijing Winter Olympics, Zhu Dingwen had just finished his competition in the Netherlands and was quarantined at the hotel. The first reaction was excitement, "after so many years of sweat and blood, finally got a very perfect recognition." Then he called to inform his relatives and friends of the good news.
But when a round of celebrations passed, he slowly calmed down in the room alone, and an invisible pressure enveloped him with hindsight. "The Hong Kong team has won very good results and won many medals at the Tokyo Olympics before, so now the sports atmosphere in Hong Kong seems to be completely different, and hong Kong citizens have higher expectations for athletes."
Similar pressures are always there. If you want to stay at the Hong Kong Institute of Sport and be classified as an elite athlete with a steady stream of support, you need to maintain your performance in international competitions and competitions. Therefore, Zhu Dingwen, who said that he wanted to enjoy the game, actually never dared to slacken off, "Every game, there is a mentality that must win." ”
In the years of studying in the United States, in order to take care of his studies, Zhu Dingwen could only squeeze time. Get up at 3:00 a.m., "go on the ice" training at 4:30 a.m. until about 8:00 a.m., go home to take a shower and go to school, and after school at 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., it belongs to land training.
The carefree campus time that was sacrificed in the middle, he did not regret. "When I finally got my ticket to the Olympics, looking back, I felt as if it was worth it."
The road to preparing for the Olympics can be described as bumpy, due to the limitations of the epidemic, Zhu Dingwen cannot travel to and from the mainland, and Hong Kong has no suitable training venues. For nearly a year, he could not "go on the ice" for professional training, and could only wait while maintaining special training on land.
For the Winter Olympics, Zhu Dingwen's goal is to "perform the best self", "Although the Hong Kong team has made great progress in recent years, we may not be able to compare with the Chinese national team and the South Korean team, so don't put too much pressure on yourself, but enjoy the process." I want to focus my mind on maintaining my physical state, my mental state, and making the best version of myself. ”
Photo by Zhang Wei, a reporter from China News Service
Fractured right foot dream of pyeongchang
Initially, Zhu Dingwen targeted the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. He had long thought that he would represent the Chinese Hong Kong team in the Olympic Games at the age of 18.
The accident was unexpected. It was one day of Zhu Dingwen's plateau training in Xinjiang, he fell down, resulting in three fractures of his right ankle, and after the operation, the doctor told him that it would take at least 4 months to recover, but there were only two and a half months left before the Olympic qualification.
Zhu Dingwen, who is naturally optimistic, did not fall into a low ebb, a photo he posted on a social networking site, classmates with McDonald's to visit him, food spread over a small table, he sat at the head of the bed and laughed.
"That's because I have a spiritual icon, my coach Sun Dandan." Zhu Dingwen's Sun Dandan, who was once affiliated with the Chinese national team, is currently the head skating coach of the Hong Kong Institute of Sport.
Sun Dandan took the initiative to tell him about his illness. "In a match two and a half months before the Nagano Winter Olympics, she had the same fracture as me, and she insisted on participating in the same situation as she did not have enough time to recover, but she still won a silver medal at the Winter Olympics." The strength of this "she can be me" encouragement supported Zhu Dingwen through more than 6 hours of rehabilitation treatment every day, although he failed to get the ticket to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics as he wished, and did not immediately throw himself into preparation for the Beijing Winter Olympics in a moment of depression.
Now, Zhu Dingwen instead sees the injury as a turning point, optimistically calling it a learning process. "After the injury, the Olympic dream meant more to me."
"That's what I want to do"
Despite the pain, fatigue, anxiety in the back of the chase, and never thought about the reason for giving up, Zhu Dingwen did not need to think much about it to blurt out: "I like the feeling of flying on ice, a bit like riding a roller coaster, but you can control the track at any time, in the process of high-speed gliding, constantly surpass your opponents, but also surpass yourself." 」 ”
He was married to the sport at the age of 5, when many Canadian classmates in international schools played ice sports and his mother sent him to learn ice hockey. Growing to 11 or 12 years old, he was smaller and had clearly lost his advantage in this multi-collision sport. When my mother saw him thin, he was hit by a tall and brave foreign classmate and flew to the sidelines, and she was very distressed and did not let him play again.
One day, he happened to see a short-track speed skating video of the Winter Olympics on the Internet, and his curiosity drove him to immediately search for relevant information, "I think this seems to be what I want to do, I miss the feeling of flying on the ice." 」 So he signed up for an interest class and practiced with rented fancy shoes.
Zhu Dingwen still remembers that he put on his rented fancy shoes and stood at the ice rink in a shopping mall in Hong Kong, and couldn't wait to use the fastest speed to sneak around the field, and he was very happy. Later, when he thought back on the taste, he realized that it was the feeling of a person who had gone around for many years and finally found something he really loved, natural and cheerful, and everything was just right.
Source: China News Service