Introduction: We who have been bathed in the sun for a long time have long forgotten the courage it takes to light the first fire in the darkness
In Lake Placid in the United States in 1980, 30-year-old Zhao Weichang raised the Chinese flag and led the team forward in the snow and ice. That year, the Chinese delegation made its first overseas expedition to participate in the Winter Olympics. However, the first match of China's Winter Olympics did not go well, and on the stage full of masters, the Debut Chinese team was not the protagonist and did not achieve any ranking. Fourteen years later, in Lillehammer, Norway, Ye Qiaobo, dragging a broken leg, won a valuable bronze medal, the first medal ever won by the Chinese Winter Olympic team and the first fire that lit up the night of China's ice and snow sports.
Wang Meng recalled that in 1963, speed skater Luo Zhihuan won the first speed skating gold medal for the Chinese team at the World Men's Speed Skating Championships. At that time, China had a total of 30 gold medals, of which 29 came from table tennis, and Luo Zhihuan could be described as the "only seedling" of China's ice sports at that time. Athletes have a moment to prove their hearts, from domestic competitions all the way to the world-class stage, and finally won the Olympic championship. All this seems so natural to us today, but at the time, it was difficult.
You should remember the Philippine Soul Diving Team that caught fire online during the Rio Olympics. Poor facial expression management, stiff body movements, and bomb-like splashes are the hallmarks of this team. Whenever the Chinese team took the podium and enjoyed flowers and applause, the Diving Team in the Philippines may only laugh. And they slowly packed their bags, trained silently, and waited for the next game.
The former Chinese team is also like this in the world. Without scientific training, lack of competition experience, many people may exhaust their entire careers and not be able to get on the podium. So what is the meaning of this persistence? The stories of the older ones may be too old, but China's steel-frame snowmobile athlete Geng Wenqiang may be able to tell us the answer.
As China's first generation of steel-framed snowmobile athletes, Geng Wenqiang, like athletes decades ago, has been exposed to a new sport from scratch. As a former track and field athlete, Geng Wenqiang has never been exposed to steel frame snowmobiles. The sport's speed is as high as 120 km/h, and just lying on the snowmobile makes him dizzy. In the first week of training, Geng Wenqiang could not even slide out of a straight line. In the days when he first entered the international arena, Geng Wenqiang never had the opportunity to stand on the podium. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, he skated his personal best and only reached 13th place. So, what is the point of such persistence? If those athletes had chosen another event, they might have been able to take the podium and enjoy the flowers and glory, so why should they continue to stick to a track they never touched?
Geng Wenqiang told the audience: "I never doubted my ability, I think I can still do a lot of things I can do." ”
On November 1, 2018, at the International Snowmobile Federation North American Cup, Geng Wenqiang finally won his first world championship and China's first steel frame snowmobile world championship.
The meaning of persistence lies in persistence itself. After the 1980 Winter Olympics, the 30-year-old Zhao Weichang chose to retire. But he never gave up his love of ice sports when he left the arena, and he served as the head coach of the Jilin Provincial Speed Skating Team and the director of the Changchun Sports Science Research Institute, and has been accompanying the Chinese team in this way. Mentioning The first gold of Dayang Yang, the old man was still very excited. Ye Qiaobo, who "went with an ice knife and returned in a wheelchair", has also been watching the arena, and at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, when Zhang Hong won the first speed skating gold medal for the Chinese team, Ye Qiaobo on the commentary seat choked and said: "The journey of 22 years has finally ushered in a breakthrough today. ”
From Da Yang Yang to Wang Meng, to Zhou Yang and Wu Dajing, these brilliant moments all came from those who once raised torches in the dark to explore the dark.
With the first expedition of Chinese athletes, only then did Dayang Yang successfully crown in Salt Lake City, and only then could Wang Meng ride the dust and crush the championship. Ye Qiaobo sprinted desperately on the field with a welded ice knife, and returned home injured to win a valuable medal. 22 years later, Zhang Hong took the torch in her hand and won the gold medal in speed skating for China. The biting cold wind under the cold winter did not blow the will of Ye Qiaobo and others, and the desire for victory in his heart accompanied him, because he and they knew that the suffering he endured at that time was the path of inheritance at this time, so that youth continued to bloom and torches continued to burn.