In 1990, in the weightlifting competition above the 11th Beijing Asian Games, Chinese athletes beat the athletes of various countries, won gold medals, and broke the Asian record.
In his 8-year athletic career, he has won more than 40 national championships, and more than 20 Asian champions are star figures in the world of weightlifting. However, after Caili retired, only 5 years later, he died in poverty, and he could not even afford to buy a cemetery. What's going on here?
In 1970, Caili was born in an ordinary family in Changtu County, Liaoning Province. The birth of Caili made his parents very happy, because he was a very cute fat boy since he was a child, and he had a good strength, and his father loved him, so he simply changed his name to "Caili".
However, Caili's childhood was not happy. Because he is very fat, he is often teased and ridiculed by his friends, which makes him very annoyed. Especially after going to school, he was discriminated against by many people. And because of his low self-esteem, his academic performance is very average.
Even so, Caili's reading career had to be interrupted because his family was too poor. After dropping out of school, he returned home and could only help his parents do what they could. But because he is too fat and slow to move, there are very few things he can do. But the appetite has always been very good, and the people are getting stronger and stronger.
In the early 1980s, the state paid more and more attention to sports, culture and education. In order to tap potential sports seedlings, some coaches not only train athletes, but occasionally they will walk around in order to find some talented and good seedlings.
On that day, Caili was helping his parents carry water, and a coach of a children's sports school took a fancy to his strong physique and thought that he was a weightlifting wizard, so he recruited him into the children's sports school for training.
In the children's sports school, I began to contact the training of weightlifting. Although it is amateur training, the talent is very able to endure hardships. By the time he was 13 years old, he had passed the selection and entered the Liaoning Provincial Sports and Sports Technical College to continue training. There he began formal training, and his progress increased by leaps and bounds during that time.
In 1985, after training for 2 years, he was qualified to represent the Liaoning Provincial Team in the first National Youth Games. In his debut, he won the championship in weightlifting competitions over 110 kg, when he was only 15 years old.
Since then, Caili has represented the Liaoning team in many large-scale domestic competitions. As long as he competes, no one can compete with him for the championship. During the eight years from 1985 to 1993, Caili became a champion professional in many competitions. With his presence, other weightlifters can only look forward to the title of champion forever.
In 1990, Caili once again won the gold medal at the Beijing Asian Games with his unshakable strength, completing his dream of becoming a world champion. At this time, he became a hero who won glory for the country, and flowers and applause poured into him like a tide, and this became his highlight moment.
However, for a weightlifter, overloading the weight is not only very damaging to the body, but also has a great impact on their health during daily high-intensity training. For example, in 1993, after winning the championship in the Seventh National Games, because of his excessive fat body and increasing injuries, his final performance declined rapidly, and he had to retire and end his sports career.
At this time, he was only 23 years old and a world champion, so he should have a good place to go. However, at that time, the state did not establish a perfect guarantee mechanism for retired athletes, and athletes relied on competitions to win prizes. For them, retirement means that they can no longer participate in the game, and there is basically no source of income.
Talent has no education, and does not have a skill, years of training has made him fall into an injury. And because of the weight gain during training, the uncontrolled diet also greatly affected his health. To make matters worse, he also suffered from sleep apnea syndrome. He often fell asleep while talking to others, so it was very difficult for him to find a job in society.
Of course, according to the relevant regulations, excellent athletes like Caili who have made contributions to the country, the provincial team can help recommend work. At that time, the provincial team sent a letter of recommendation to the Shenyang Municipal Public Security Bureau, and the director of the Public Security Bureau heard that it was a world champion, so he personally interviewed him. As a result, the two did not talk for 2 minutes before they fell asleep. The director of public security believed that with his physical strength, he was not competent for the work of public security cadres and policemen, so the originally very good opportunity was lost.
After that, Caili's friend knew how to make money by renting, so he helped him buy a car and let him be a self-employed person. But when the driver not only sits in the driver's seat all day long, but also has to be busy from morning to night. With the physical condition of talent, there is no way to do it. So soon after the car was bought, It was sold backwards.
With no financial resources, his injuries were getting worse by the day, and the bottomless pit of medical expenses quickly drained all his savings. In this case, the talent is not a last resort, and they are forced not to go to the hospital.
At that time, the doctor had already told him that his sleep apnea syndrome was very serious and it was easy to suffocate in his sleep, so he should be especially careful. Talent and his family did not attract attention, after all, he was still very young, he could not imagine that death was close to him.
At that time, the thing that bothered him the most was obesity. Because he was too fat, he did not dare to bend down at will, so he tried not to wear socks, for fear that he would squeeze the internal organs and die suddenly when he bent over.
After the provincial team learned of Caili's poor life, they arranged for him to work as a security guard in the sports hospital, as a doorman, who could get 1200 yuan a month, and could continue to eat in the canteen with the athletes.
Then, Caili and Liu Chengju, who is also a weightlifter, became home. Although both are not in good health and need to run the hospital for a long time, marriage seems to have a new beginning for both of them. Especially after the birth of her daughter Cai Han, there was a lot of laughter in the family.
However, the poor couple lamented. As family expenses grew larger, so did liu chengju and Caili's quarrels. At that time, Liu Chengju held the economic power of the family, and the salary of the talented force had to be handed over to Liu Chengju one cent at a time. Because he didn't have any money in his hands, when he was hungry, he couldn't buy a package of biscuits.
What embarrassed the talent the most was that he and the athletes huddled together to eat in the canteen. Because of the large amount of food he ate, even the master of the canteen laughed at him and said that he was no longer an athlete, and he came to eat and drink for free.
This trivial matter in life, one after another, makes Caili feel that his self-esteem has been hurt. Sometimes he also thinks that he once trained so hard and wanted to win glory for the country, but in the end, he only left him with pain and a life of chicken feathers. Every time he thought of this, he couldn't help but sigh. However, for the reality of the situation, the talent can not change.
On May 31, 2003, as soon as Caili woke up in the morning, he felt that he could not breathe and his head hurt. Liu Chengju was very worried, so she urged him to go to his parents to live for a while.
In order to raise money for him to see him, Caili's parents had already sold the house and rented it in a dilapidated small house. When she saw her tired son appear in front of her, her mother was very distressed about this injured and tortured son, so she bought a few pounds of meat and came back and made him his favorite braised meat.
However, to the surprise of her mother, Caili had no appetite at all except for muttering and headaches.
The mother was worried, so she felt 120 yuan to give Caili, so he must go to the hospital to check it out.
Who knows, CaiLi's condition worsened soon after he arrived at the hospital. The doctor found that his lungs were seriously infected, so they rushed to rescue him. On the other hand, after the father of Caili received the news, in order to let his son receive treatment smoothly, he raised money everywhere, hoping to help his son pay the hospitalization fee and surgery fee. However, before his father could hand over the money to the hospital's billing window, he vomited and died in his hospital bed.
When Caili died, Liu Chengju only had 300 yuan in his hand. Unable to afford the cemetery, it took several years after the cremation to be buried.
Caili's death did not attract much attention.
It wasn't until 2017 that Caili's daughter, Cai Han, who was suffering from cancer with her mother and couldn't afford expensive medical bills, attracted people's attention when she raised donations online. No one believes that a world champion can die with no dignity because he is poor and has no money to treat his illness. No one believes that the wife and daughter of a world champion also ended up with a tragic end of no money to treat the disease.
For a while, the tragic fate of talent has aroused great concern among people, and the issue of the resettlement of retired athletes has become a topic of discussion. Fortunately, in the past few years, the state has also continuously carried out sports reform, and has made some corresponding regulations on the living security and employment of retired athletes, which has solved many problems.
Hopefully, after the athletes who have won glory for the country retire, there will never be such a tragic thing as talent again.