On January 25, there are 10 days left before the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics. In the early morning, athletes and coaches of the Chinese sports delegation at the Beijing Winter Olympics came to Tiananmen Square to watch the flag-raising ceremony, and then swore an oath. Zhu Yi, the "little flower" who just won the women's single skating quota in figure skating, also participated in the event as an athlete representative. For the major test that is about to usher in the Olympic Games, Zhu Yi posted in the evening to express his irrepressible excitement.
After a month of 3 stops and 5 Olympic trials, the candidates to represent China in the figure skating men's and women's single skating at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics were finally finalized, and Zhu Yi, a 19-year-old "little flower", stood out in the fierce competition and won the only place in the women's single skating of the Winter Olympics. From refusing the invitation of the American team and choosing Chinese nationality, to now qualifying for the Olympics, Zhu Yi has taken a solid step towards her Olympic dream.
On September 19, 2002, Zhu Yi was born into a Chinese-American family, the "Yi" in her name is taken from the "I Ching", and the nickname "Youyou" is derived from the famous sentence in the Tang Dynasty poet Cui Hao's "Climbing the Yellow Crane Tower" - "The Yellow Crane is gone forever, and the white clouds are long and leisurely", which contains the father's attachment to his hometown in Hubei. Although Zhu Yi, who grew up in the United States, may not fully understand the deep meaning behind her name when she was a child, Chinese culture is still an important source of nourishment for her growing up.
By chance, Zhu Yi was exposed to skating at the age of 7, and no one expected that among her many hobbies, this slightly unpopular project would later completely change the trajectory of her life. In January 2018, zhu Yi, then 16 years old, won the women's singles championship in the rookie category of the National Figure Skating Championships, and also in 2018, figure skating world champion Chen Lu was hired by the Chinese Olympic Committee as the head coach of the "Morning Road Plan" figure skating national training team, and her main task was to dig up talents for the Chinese women's single skating team that had been broken in recent years. The national training team led by Chen Lu mainly trains in the United States, and the search for Chinese reserve forces is also part of the plan, and Zhu Yi, who has emerged in American figure skating events and has a Chinese ancestry, naturally entered Chen Lu's investigation range.
Chen Lu (right) couple with Zhu Yi
In fact, for Chen Lu, the best women's singles player in the history of Chinese figure skating, Zhu Yi has long been adored, and being able to get her favor is undoubtedly a great affirmation and encouragement for the little girl. In addition to the power of idols, the main reason why Zhu Yi chose Chinese nationality is that compared with the talented and fiercely competitive American figure skating team, she is more likely to realize her dream of participating in the Olympic Games in the Chinese figure skating team. In 2019, Zhu Yi finally chose Chinese nationality and began to represent the Chinese team in competitions.
In the previous Beijing Winter Olympics selection competition, Zhu Yi competed fiercely with Lin Shan and Chen Hongyi. It is worth mentioning that Lin Shan is also a Chinese figure skating talent introduced by Chen Lu through the "Morning Road Plan", she is younger than Zhu Yi, in the selection competition related to entering the Olympic Games, Lin Shan showed stronger momentum in the first game and won the first place; and another women's singles player, Chen Hongyi, although the same age as Zhu Yi, has far more experience in the competition than her. Faced with a strong challenge from two teammates, Zhu Yi quickly adjusted his form and stood out from the selection rules of "taking 4 best points in 5 games and selecting the best", and got the only women's singles Olympic place.
After the excitement of qualifying for the Olympic Games, Zhu Yi quickly felt the pressure from the burden on his shoulders, after all, at the Olympic Games held at his doorstep, there was only one place for Chinese women's singles figure skating, and no matter who went, he had to assume the responsibility of representing China's women's singles. In addition, Zhu Yi's "counterattack" in the selection competition has also aroused suspicion and heated discussion from the outside world, because in the eyes of ice fans, the Olympic selection competition is not open to the audience, and its selection methods and scoring standards are not transparent. In response to the outside world's doubts, Wang Yumin, chief referee of the China Figure Skating Olympic Selection Tournament and the technical team of the international referee, made an answer through China Sports News.
According to the technical team responsible for technical action recognition and grading, the 3 female players have 5 kinds of three-week jump and "three consecutive three" difficulty reserves, of which Lin Shan's movement amplitude is large and the quality is high, but the degree of completion is large, and there are many mistakes; Chen Hongyi's jump can stand, but there are different problems in the starting blade and the number of weeks; in comparison, Zhu Yi's jump is more stable, the quality of rotation and footwork completion is very high, and all four levels have reached the fourth level after several games.
Referee Wang Yumin said that the referees in the selection competition in strict accordance with the international skating federation of the evaluation standards of the score, according to this standard, athletes have a big mistake, not only will lose technical points, sliding ability, action articulation, action performance, music arrangement, music understanding and other five major scores will also be affected, Lin Shan is in this regard suffered losses. Chen Hongyi is subject to problems such as the wrong blade for starting and jumping, the lack of ice weeks, etc., and there are more technical action drop groups, correspondingly, not only can the score not go up, but also can not get the extra points of the completion quality, so her score is not ideal. Zhu Yi performed steadily in the selection competition, and his score naturally exceeded that of two competitors. In addition, Wang Yumin also introduced that in order to avoid the subjective impression of the referee affecting the evaluation of the athletes, in the selection match divided into 3 stations and 5 games, the members of the referee team of each game will be adjusted, thus avoiding a referee from beginning to end to referee 5 games, and then forming an inherent impression, from the perspective of referee selection, which further creates a level playing field for athletes.
Lin Shan, Chen Hongyi and Zhu Yi (from left to right)
It is worth noting that although she ultimately missed the Beijing Winter Olympics, Chen Hongyi also spoke through a personal social platform after the selection, she not only attached a number of photos of the women's singles trio and her teammates in the figure skating team, but also emotionally wrote, "Very lucky, the preparation brought us together", "Although she did not qualify for the Olympics, she spent an unparalleled time". Obviously, Chen Hongyi was not dissatisfied with the competition for Olympic qualification, and it is interesting that without the Olympic participation task, Chen Hongyi recently went to Shichahai to give a "dimensionality reduction blow" to amateur figure skaters who skated there.
Before being asked if she was sure of qualifying for the Winter Olympics, Zhu Yi always said "hope" and "try her best"; now, she stood out from the fierce competition and took the Winter Olympics "through train", this 19-year-old "little flower" finally realized her biggest dream of figure skating life, but she did not meet this, let herself be known by more people, compete with more high-level players, and show herself in the Winter Olympic games, which is her three wishes, "It is an honor to participate in the Winter Olympics, I will continue to work hard to prepare for the competition, look forward to showing a good performance, showing a better self in Beijing, and also hope that all the players of the Chinese delegation can achieve satisfactory results. ”
At present, Zhu Yi is making final sprint preparations for the Winter Olympic Games, and the coaching staff is focusing on controlling her state, hoping to help her surpass herself and perform better in the Olympic arena. In terms of strength, China's women's singles figure skating does not yet have the absolute strength to overthrow the world's best players represented by Russian athletes, but Zhu Yi's first Winter Olympic trip still has multiple meanings, she not only has to play her own level as much as possible, show the level of Chinese figure skating, but also to accumulate experience for herself and the future generations of Chinese women's singles figure skating. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, can this "Chinese ice butterfly" named Zhu Yi shine his dream into reality? Let's wait and see!
Chinese figure skating team
Beijing Winter Olympics participation list:
Men's Singles: Jin Boyang
Women's Singles: Zhu Yi
Pair skating: Sui Wenjing/Han Cong, Peng Cheng/Jin Yang
Ice Dance: Wang Shiyue /Liu Xinyu