On the evening of February 2, the last stick of the torch relay was Liu Boqiang, an icemaker at the Beijing Shougang Park Sports Center. Accompanied by applause and cheers, he held aloft the "flying" torch and ran into the scene of the Three Blast Furnace South Square.
Liu Boqiang said excitedly: "As an industrial worker in the new era, looking back on my growth experience, I have never felt so truly that I have such a close connection with national development and national events!" Someone once asked me, do you have a dream? I said, I have! That is, when the Winter Olympics arrived, I appeared at the scene of guaranteeing the Winter Olympics as a Chinese ice craftsman! Now my dream is coming true! ”
Due to the intense ice-making work every day, his right arm holding up the torch was noticeably thicker than his left arm. With the transformation of the refined coal workshop in the old factory area of Shougang into figure skating, short track speed skating, curling and ice hockey "four pieces of ice", Liu Boqiang, the "old Shougang" who has worked as a rolling steel worker, maintenance inspector and welder, has opened a "cross-border" from fire to ice.
This time becoming the torchbearer of the Winter Olympics, Liu Boqiang was quite surprised. More than ten days ago, when he learned of this good news, who had planned to enter the closed-loop work of the "Ice Cube", he was stunned for a while, and the first sentence he blurted out was "Is this really not?" ”
"I really didn't expect that ordinary Winter Olympic support staff can also become torchbearers!" Liu Boqiang was surprised and excited, but he could not participate in the ice making work of the "Ice Cube" curling track for the first time, and he also had some "small regrets" in his heart. He sighed one after another: "The Winter Olympics have changed the trajectory of my life, and I must successfully complete the glorious task of the torch relay!" ”
Liu Boqiang and the Winter Olympics met in 2017. At that time, Shougang Park launched the construction of "four pieces of ice", which needed to train a group of ice sweepers to serve the Winter Olympics, and he was willing to "taste the early" and gladly signed up, and 12 transferred workers came to the Capital Gymnasium for three months of training. "As an old Shougang person, we can also be regarded as following the pace of Transformation of Shougang." He said.
Although he had never been exposed to ice and snow-related work, not even ice skating, he was fascinated by the knowledge of ice sweeping. He went out early and returned late, did not rest on weekends, took the initiative to practice, and learned from the teacher when he had nothing to do. At the end of the training period, he often returned to the first body to learn the craft, and became friends with many masters, seeing that he was studious, and the masters were willing to teach him.
Ice making is not simply "frozen water into ice", the ice surface used in ice sports not only has requirements for indoor temperature and humidity, but also has strict standards for the water temperature, cleanliness and even pH value of ice making water, and the requirements for the softness, thickness and temperature of ice in different competitions are not the same, the most demanding is the curling track, and the process of artificially making ice points is called "dotting". In order to practice "dotting", he did not have the opportunity to go to the ice at the beginning, he carried more than 40 pounds of equipment to the road outside the stadium to practice hard.
Liu Boqiang's technology is increasing day by day, and the first time he "dots" on the ice, he has been successful, which has made foreign ice makers give a thumbs up. Nowadays, there are only more than a dozen professional ice makers on curling tracks like him, and there are only more than a dozen people in the country. High-level service to ensure the training of the national short track, pattern, ice hockey, curling team, Liu Boqiang's ice-making skills have been fully recognized by the national team, but he knows that there is still a long way to go to become a top ice maker, which is also his biggest career ideal.
"I recently got a training material for ice makers in English, and the process of learning it is like 'opening a blind box', which is so interesting!" Liu Boqiang used the photo translation software to "nibble" this thick material. He was determined to learn English well and better study international advanced ice making techniques.
For the Beijing Winter Olympics, Liu Boqiang believes that it will be a wonderful, extraordinary, and outstanding Winter Olympic event, and he also has two wishes: he hopes that Chinese Olympic athletes will achieve more results, win more gold medals, and add glory to the country, which is also the common wish of the staff behind the Winter Olympics; after participating in the torch relay, he hopes to have the opportunity to participate in the next Winter Olympic ice protection, accumulate experience in international competitions, and truly become a top ice maker in the future, helping China's ice making skills to a new height. Let more athletes step on the best quality ice rink and enjoy the best training and competition environment.