#七台河: How to create the history of short track speed skating #【Xiaoqiang Quick Review】Without him, there would be no world championship! Who is the person Wang Meng Fan Kexin is most grateful to? "You can always trust Chinese short track speed

#七台河: How to create the history of short track speed skating #

【Xiao Qiang Quick Comment】Without him, there would be no world championship! Who is the person Wang Meng Fan Kexin is most grateful to?

"You can always trust the Chinese short track speed skating team!" Wang Meng's words were all over the Internet during the Beijing Winter Olympics, but do you know that the people who made this sentence a reality were not only athletes who stood on the top of the world, such as Wang Meng, Yang Yang, and Fan Kexin, but also skating coaches in a coal mine in Qitaihe City, Heilongjiang Province. His name was Meng Qingyu.

The current Qitaihe City is the "Hometown of Chinese Winter Olympic Champions" and the "Hometown of China's Short Track Speed Skating", and in the previous Winter Olympics, China's short track speed skating has won 10 gold medals, of which 6 are from Qitaihe City. Athletes who have come out of here have broken world records 15 times and won 173 gold medals in world-class competitions. A few decades ago, however, it was just a city that made its living from coal mines.

Meng Qingyu was born in Harbin to a working-class family, and his family was in a difficult situation due to the large number of brothers and sisters. Skating is his only hobby and his specialty, he once wanted to go to sports school, but due to the background of the times and the pressure of life, he went to Qitaihe City to become a coal miner. Even in the mines, he did not give up skating, and also represented Qitaihe in the Games, winning multiple championships. The director of the municipal sports team approached him and asked him if he wanted to be a skating coach for the city ice sports team.

Although the coach's salary at that time was much less than mining, he devoted himself to his coaching career and began to recruit the first players. The children of Qitaihe City grew up in the mine and were known as "little briquettes". He told the "Little Briquettes" about the world championship, but the children didn't have any concepts, and many people just thought skating was fun. Every day, he urged the children to get up early to train, in addition to skating, but also to exercise physical fitness. Compared with winter Olympic sports such as skiing, the conditions and thresholds for short track speed skating training are relatively low, and the children in these mines finally have the opportunity to change their fate through competitive sports.

Today's National Speed Skating Hall Ice Ribbon has the largest all-ice design in Asia, the flattest ice surface. However, the starting point of China's short-track speed skating is the simple ice rink that Meng Qingyu poured himself. At first, the team members slid on the water beach or on the river, but the ice was not a pothole, and there was a danger of falling into the river. So Meng Qingyu designed a simple ice pouring truck, filled with water, and poured around the field in a circle. On a winter night of minus 40 degrees, he got up in the early morning every day to pour ice, and after pouring a few laps, the water on his body froze into ice.

Meng Qingyu also took the children to build dormitories, repair houses, sharpen ice knives, and pour ice rinks. Some team members have difficult families, he pays for his children to buy shoes, he often takes the pots and pans at home, and subsidizes the lives of the team members with his own wages, and the training team has become another "home" for him. From his training team, he has successively stepped out of the provincial championship and the national champion. In 2002, his team member Yang Yang won China's first winter Olympic gold medal at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. In 2006, "Little Briquette" Wang Meng won the gold medal in the women's 500 meters at the Winter Olympics in Turin, and four years later in the Vancouver Winter Olympics, he achieved the defending title. In 2022, team member Fan Kexin competed in the 2000m mixed relay of the Beijing Winter Olympics and won her first Winter Olympic gold medal. Meng Qingyu's "little briquettes" did not fail him.

However, Meng Qingyu was unable to witness this and won the Winter Olympic gold medal at his doorstep. In August 2006, he died in a car accident while sending the team members to Harbin for training, leaving endless regrets for the legend he wrote. But the seeds he planted for China's short-track speed skating have now grown into towering trees and bear fruit. We can always believe that the Chinese short track speed skating team laid by Meng Qingyu. Headlines hit list

Without him there would be no world championship! Who is the person Wang Meng Fan Kexin is most grateful to?