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"Which sports competition is strong, the king of Chinese women!"
These days, the Beijing Winter Olympics are in full swing, coupled with the Chinese women's football asian cup final, so that the "genius two-board girl" Gu Ailing, "Chinese women's football Messi" Wang Shuang frequently brushed the screen, many netizens can not help but issue such a sigh.
In contrast, although the fame of "Chinese female ice door god" Zhou Jiaying is not so big, she is also a female classmate with a story. Whether it is origin, background or strength, it is not simple.
Zhou Jiaying, a "naturalized" player born in Canada, was originally a "gold collar" who graduated from an Ivy League school. 4 years ago, she gave up the high salary on Wall Street and chose to return to China to work as a female ice goalkeeper. And her parents, brother, and even her grandfather are all "celebrities in the circle".
At this Beijing Winter Olympics, Zhou Jiaying's save success rate was 95.51%, ranking second among all the team's goalkeepers, and her "five consecutive saves" made the Japanese team completely collapse...
▲Image source: Shenzhen Kunlun Hongxing Club
1.
/ Scholar from a prestigious family /
Born in 1995, Zhou Jiaying is an authentic Chinese and foreign mixed-race child, her father Nicholas was a member of the Canadian ice hockey team, and her mother Zhou Jianping graduated from Xi'an Jiaotong University and played for the basketball team of Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Don't look at Zhou Jiaying has foreign blood, but her ancestors are a famous family of the Taizhou generation in Zhejiang. Her mother's grandfather, her grandfather Zhou Xuhua (1890-1958), was a prominent Chinese physician.
Around 1911, Zhou Xuhua was admitted to study at public expense, went to Tokyo Imperial University in Japan to study medicine, became friends with Guo Moruo, and returned to China in 1922 after studying in Japan for 11 years. During the Republic of China period, Zhou Xuhua served as the chief of the Department of Health of the Ministry of the Interior, the Director of The Department of Health as the chief of the Technical Administration and Section, and the Zhejiang Provincial Health Department as the Chief of Technology.
In 1946, after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhou Zhirou, then commander-in-chief of the Air Force of the Nationalist Government, organized the Taizhou Public Hospital in Linhai, Zhejiang. As an expert in tropical diseases, Zhou Xuhua was invited by Zhou Zhirou to give up his return to Hangzhou to continue his high post and high salary, and returned to Linhai to take charge of the preparatory work. With the support of officials and celebrities, Taizhou Hospital opened the following year, with Zhou Xuhua as the first president.
Later, Zhou Xuhua's son, Zhou Jiaying's grandfather, came to live in Hangzhou. In order to communicate better with his grandfather, Zhou Jiaying, who was a foreign language from the novel, began to study hard Chinese from college.
▲ Zhou Jiaying and Grandpa Image source: Network
In 2012, 17-year-old Zhou Jiaying has grown into a "school bully", after completing her credits in advance in middle school, she jumped to Princeton University, which ranked first in the United States, to study economics and finance.
In 2016, after graduating from Princeton University, Zhou Jiaying went to Wall Street to pursue a job, eventually working as a fund analyst at Credit Suisse Bank. Founded in 1856 and headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, Credit Suisse bank is the world's fifth-largest consortium and the second-largest bank in Switzerland, with branches in more than 50 countries, including investment banking, private banking and wealth management.
Public information shows that for analysts who have just entered the international investment bank, their salaries are mainly composed of basic salaries and bonuses, and the bonuses include year-end bonuses, semi-annual awards, signing awards, etc. An investment bank payroll circulating on the Internet shows that the average salary of junior analysts is generally 12w-36w, plus bonuses of about 10w-40w, and the salary range is around 22w-76w.
▲Image source: Network
That is to say, if Zhou Jiaying can always be immersed in international investment banks and achieve good results, her career path is most likely to be like this: junior analyst→ senior manager→ vice president (VP) → senior vice president (SVP) → general manager (MD).
However, what many people did not expect was that Zhou Jiaying did not roll up on the road of the investment bank "Golden Collar".
In 2018, after Zhou Jiaying was selected by Shenzhen Kunlun Hongxing Club, he resolutely quit his high-paying job at a Swiss bank and came to China to regain his club, become a professional ice hockey player, and prepare for the Beijing Winter Olympics for 4 years.
Behind the seemingly accidental decision is actually inseparable from the foundation laid by years of hard work.
2.
/ From Investment Bank analyst to hockey goalkeeper /
Zhou Jiaying has been in contact with ice hockey for a long time.
She learned figure skating since she was a child, and was later influenced by her brother in the Harvard Varsity team to play ice hockey. Once, Zhou Jiaying was waiting for his brother to finish his hockey training at the ice rink, and there happened to be a goalkeeper training camp there, "I just stood there looking at the goalkeeper and thought: It's so cool!" So the idea of joining the team came up.
However, Zhou Jiaying played with the boys at a young age and encountered the "chain of contempt" of ice hockey.
Because she was a girl, the boys always gave her a pass on the grounds that "this is a boy's sport." In order to have more opportunities to touch the ball, Zhou Jiaying changed to the position of goalkeeper and paid more effort than the boys on the same team.
"If you lose a game, people will say 'she's a girl, understandably' 'girls are worse than boys', as if the reason for losing is that I didn't keep the goal well. I don't want gender to be an excuse to lose. ”
During college, Zhou Jiaying also joined the varsity ice hockey team, representing the varsity team in the National College Sports Association (NCAA) competition. During his time in school, he attended 111 games, averaged 0.92 saves per game, was repeatedly named "Best Goalkeeper of the Week", "Best Goalkeeper of the Month", and was selected to the All-Star Team for four consecutive years during his school years, and also won the U18 World Championship for the National Team of Canada.
It is lamentable that after graduating from college, Zhou Jiaying gave up ice hockey to join the investment bank, still because of the "chain of contempt" of ice hockey.
At that time, women's ice hockey was far less noticeable and commercial than men's ice hockey. Although women's ice hockey also has a league, but not only no salary, but also female players work half the game, it can be said that "power generation with love", and even can not be regarded as a real profession, can not be compared with the annual salary of men's professional ice hockey at all millions.
This means that once Zhou Jiaying chooses to play, he will fall into the dilemma of no income. At that time, for Zhou Jiaying, there happened to be a professional counterpart job, and she chose to enter the investment bank, which was also her "optimal solution" at that time.
"I'm an adult, and I hope I can fight for the sport I love when I don't need my family to worry about life." Zhou Jiaying later recalled.
This time, with the Winter Olympics back to the public eye, Zhou Jiaying also handed over a satisfactory answer:
At this Winter Olympics, Zhou Jiaying made 3 appearances, conceded 4 goals, conceded an average of 1.31 goals per 60 minutes, made 85 successful saves, and the save success rate was 95.51%, ranking second among all team goalkeepers, second only to Canadian goalkeeper Debian's 95.88%. Many viewers were also "circled fans" by her wonderful performance.
3.
/ Why choose naturalization back to China? /
The key to Zhou Jiaying's career transformation is also the change in the world's women's ice hockey in recent years:
On the eve of the 2017 World Championships, the American women's ice team bravely fought for equal pay for men and women; then with the addition of two Chinese teams, CWHL began to pay salaries to players; later, CWHL and NWHL (American Women's Ice League) two top women's ice leagues came out of the news of the merger, the women's hockey professionalization system is gradually maturing.....
Before entering the Chinese national team, Zhou Jiaying played for the Canadian national team for many years with superb skills.
In the 2012/13 season, Zhou Jiaying was selected for the Canadian U18 national team, with the team to participate in the World Youth Championship, playing 3 games. In the final game, he successfully defended 39 of the 40 shots against the opponent, helping Canada to win the championship by beating the United States 2:1 in extra time.
In 2013, Zhou Jiaying was selected for the Canadian national training team at the Sochi Winter Olympics, and in the same year, he represented the Canadian national team in the U18 Women's Ice Hockey World Championship and won the championship. In addition, she was drafted by the NWHL New York Rivets for the 2015/16 season.
Seeing her performance at the Winter Olympics now, some people have also proposed that she can stay abroad to play, why did she choose to reinstate and naturalize?
In fact, Zhou Jiaying chose to return to China to play because of the influence of her mother. Her mother often told her not to forget her roots in China, and ice hockey brought her back to her homeland.
Before the start of the 2019/2020 Ice Hockey League, Zhou Jiaying made a speech on behalf of the Shenzhen team, when she said: "There is also an original heart to give up financial work to come to China, that is, to serve the motherland." ”
Zhou Jiaying also lived up to expectations, representing Shenzhen Women's Ice InCWHL and WHL for 4 seasons, won the Russian Women's Ice Hockey League Championship and the title of "Best Goalkeeper", she is also known as the Chinese Women's Ice Hockey after the "Great Wall of Chinese Ice" Guo Hong, the world's top level of female ice hockey goalkeeper.
After that, representing China in the Olympic Games became Zhou Jiaying's biggest dream. And just when Zhou Jiaying was proud of the spring wind, God made a big "joke" with her.
On November 15, 2021, while training in the gym, Zhou Jiaying accidentally slipped and fell, and after examination, she fractured her left ankle. Upon learning the news of the fracture, Zhou Jiaying was shocked. At that time, there were only 80 days left before the first match of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
In the face of the sudden injury, under the arrangement of the team, Zhou Jiaying flew from Moscow to Minneapolis in the United States for surgery.
"I had a lot of difficulties at the time, it was not easy to recover, but I always believed that I could recover and play in the Winter Olympics. For more than two months, I did a lot of rehabilitation every day. Despite the painful rehabilitation, Zhou Jiaying still maintained his faith and returned to the ice rink 7 weeks after the operation.
In January 2022, Zhou Jiaying took a flight to Beijing. This time, it was particularly different for Zhou Jiaying, "In the past, when I came to China, it was like an adventure to explore Chinese culture and ancestry. It's fun and there are a lot of new things to experience. Arriving in China this time, it is like going home. ”
For the injured Zhou Jiaying, it is not easy to stand on the Winter Olympic field. For the Chinese women's ice hockey team, it is also not easy to return to the Winter Olympics after 12 years. You know, since winning the 7th place in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010, The Chinese women's ice skaters have missed the main tournament for two consecutive years.
▲Image source: Visual China
In fact, not only Zhou Jiaying, in the 23-man roster of the Chinese women's ice team, a total of 13 people are Naturalized Players of Chinese Descent, and only two of them have no Chinese ancestry. The addition of more than half of the naturalized players is the result of the openness and inclusiveness of Chinese sports, and also enhances the overall strength of the team to a certain extent.
At this Beijing Winter Olympics, the World's No. 20 Chinese women's ice team, with the host wild card directly shortlisted, and the ranking higher than their own team, "battled" 4 games, won 2 wins and 2 losses:
On February 3, 2022, the Chinese women's ice team lost to the World No. 7 Czech Women's Ice Team, on February 4, the Danish Women's Ice Team, ranked 11th in the world, won the second game; on February 6, it reversed the defeat of the world's No. 6 Japanese team; on February 7, it lost to the world's No. 9 Sweden team.
Unfortunately, in the end, the Chinese team did not qualify for the quarterfinals, ending the journey of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
▲Zhou Jiaying's domineering competition costume Image source: Oriental IC
In fact, as early as the time when the Chinese team "reversed" to defeat the Japanese team, a reporter at the scene asked Zhou Jiaying what is the goal of the Chinese women's ice for the ranking and ranking?
At that time, Zhou Jiaying waved her hand, and she soberly realized: "Not to mention the ranking, I think the ranking is not important, every game is very intense, every team has the possibility of winning, what we have to do is to fight." And this is also the concept passed on by the Chinese female ice manager: "Ranking is not the most important, sports is to fight, as long as you fight you may defeat any opponent." ”
During this period, a reporter asked her again about the choice between "Wall Street investment bank work VS China's participation in the Winter Olympics".
This time, Zhou Jiaying replied without hesitation: "I think it is worth it!" ”
Source: Financial Gossip Girl Channel