Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi gave the American players a box of ice pier badges. Courtesy of Visual China
Even after six consecutive defeats, in the eyes of Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi, all they could see was the future.
On February 6, the Curling Mixed Doubles Round Robin Tournament of the Beijing Winter Olympics came to an end. On the same day, the Chinese combination lost to the British team and the Italian team one after another, completely without the momentum of the opening match.
"The opponent's form has been on the rise, and the more he plays, the better." Ling Zhi said in an interview with the Reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network, "In fact, we are also getting better through the game, but they have become better than us, because they are slowly familiar with the venue, playing more delicately, and the more the game is played to the back, the more the strength of the world's strong team can be shown." ”
Four days ago, curling, as the first event of this Winter Olympic Games, gave Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi the opportunity to stand on a stage they had never imagined.
Fan Suyuan is less than 26 years old, Ling Zhi is only 28 years old, they are in front of hundreds of millions of TV viewers, defeated the Swiss team 6:5, and won the opening of their own and the entire Chinese Winter Olympic Team, so that they suddenly achieved "breaking the circle". Immediately after, they beat the Australian team, and the winning streak made the expectations of the outside world for them unprecedentedly high.
But the turning point is only a moment. In the third round against Sweden, the Chinese combination had every chance to win the opponent, but Delva scored 3 points in the last throw, and the opponent's counterattack turned into a victory, as if to turn the situation around at once, Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi suffered six consecutive defeats.
"They have very good skills, they have a very good psychological quality, they train very hard, we can look at their statistics, they actually do a good job, they can throw a beautiful pot, the losing streak may just be a coincidence, they may win two games first, lose two games and then win two games." Chinese curling team coach Ranta Maiki said.
So, in the eyes of the Finnish coach, why Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi will go high and low, his answer is that the accumulation of games is not enough, "In the past two years, they have been living a closed-loop life, they will certainly not greatly improve their level under such circumstances, they need to play a lot of games to be competent for the competition at the level of the Olympic Games, they must play more games to become an excellent team." ”
This is also why, after six consecutive defeats that can crush any team, Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi still face every game firmly and seriously.
That's not to say that they didn't think about giving up. In the sixth set of the match against Norway, the opponent suddenly scored 5 points, and the score also came to 3:9, when Ling Zhi and the head coach had an exchange to discuss whether to give up the game.
"At that time, I discussed with the coach, but finally decided to continue to play, after losing a big score, there must be fluctuations in my heart at the first time, in fact, it is still very normal to have this kind of thinking, because the opponent is really capable, and playing with such a powerful opponent will feel that the game is very, very difficult, but the second time, you will want to play the game to the end."
This is what Ling Zhi said in an interview after the game, maybe after this, they have never wavered, the game is not impossible to lose, but through this high-level game, to learn nutrition, learn experience, "we have to fight every game", "we have to prepare for the next game", is what they most often hang on their lips, there is no hesitation in their eyes.
"They're going to get better in 4 years." "This is their first time in an international competition, but one big tournament can't let us learn everything, other teams have a lot of competitions to play in a year, but we don't know yet, whether we can participate in the World Championships in August." ”
Under the epidemic, even if Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi are eager to improve themselves, no one can guarantee what the future will be, "We hope that more people can like this sport and participate in this sport, and we also hope that we can pass on what foreign teachers teach us to all levels of teams, so that the domestic competition level and international level are closer..."
Time can certainly not return to February 2 and 3, but the attention to Chinese curling caused by Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi can actually last longer - even after six consecutive defeats, people's comments on social media about Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi are still very positive, and "breaking the circle" has also made more people who knew nothing about curling before start to pay attention to this field.
"Breaking the circle is a good thing", for Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi, the entire Beijing Winter Olympics competition experience should be less than 24 hours left, but for Chinese curling, this is since Wang Bingyu, Liu Yin, Yue Qingshuang, Zhou Yan, ushered in another opportunity for development, in the future, Chinese curlers will definitely appear in more international competitions.
Beijing, February 6 (Xinhua) --
China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Yang Tun Source: China Youth Daily
Source: China Youth Daily