"She faces the audience with a generous, peaceful smile and can speak surprisingly fluent English, representing the image of China's new generation of sports stars." This is the Associated Press's evaluation of Yang Yang.
As "China's first Winter Olympic gold medalist", whenever we mention Yang Yang, these 12 words always seem to follow her name.
In 23 years of sports career, the "Ice Queen" has won a total of 59 world championships such as the World Cup, the World Championships, and the Winter Olympics, and is the Chinese athlete who has won the most world championship titles so far.
Even if there are dozens of champions who are glorious, standing on the field, Yang Yang still feels like she is standing on the edge of a cliff at any time, and if she wants to not fall, she must pay more efforts than ordinary people.
Winter Olympic debut: the highest expectation, the most painful defeat
Let's turn the hand of time back to 20 years ago, at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, when Yang Yang stood on the highest podium of the short track speed skating women's 500m final and held aloft the heavy Chinese first Winter Olympic gold medal with his left hand, Yang Yang may have also thought that this scene would be repeatedly mentioned by major media in the future.
This gold medal in short track speed skating is of no need to say much about the significance of Winter Sports in China. But looking back on his career, for Yang Yang personally, the most memorable thing is not that Salt Lake City won two golds, but the "huge, tragic failure" in Nagano, Japan, in 1998. The Winter Olympics allowed her to gain more wealth than a gold medal, "Without 1998, there would be no individual all-around championship for six consecutive years behind me. I really learned a lot from that tragic failure."
Since 1997, Yang Yang has occupied the leading position in domestic medium, long and short distance short track speed skating. In nagano, Japan in the same year, Yang Yang also won China's first short track speed skating all-around World Championships.
After years of preparation, Yang Yang finally ushered in his first Winter Olympics, the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. That year, everyone had high expectations for the 23-year-old Yang Yang, and she and the entire Chinese delegation were looking forward to achieving a breakthrough of zero gold medals for China.
In the women's 1000 meters, Yang Yang's most powerful event, she broke the world record in the semi-finals, and everything seemed to go smoothly as planned. But in the final, fate played a big joke with Yang Yang - she was the first to cross the finish line, thinking that the gold medal fell into the bag, but less than a minute later, she was sentenced to "block the foul", and the result was directly canceled.
The fiasco in the winter Olympic debut battlefield was something this Heilongjiang girl never expected.
Yang Yang (left) at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics cried bitterly after losing the 1500m title
Falling in the strongest place, Yang Yang was once reluctant to face it, "for three or four nights, I couldn't sleep."
Recalling that time, Yang Yang confessed that she was very entangled, and she told herself that she must not use this state to face the next road. She carefully summed up the game "If I am in the last right corner, my route is better controlled, or my taxi out of the corner is better controlled..." Yang Yang, who had figured it out, began to reflect on her performance at the Winter Olympics, and she found that this matter was not as painful as she thought, but was more looking forward to the fierce competition that followed.
Yang Yang said that this is the first time she has begun to actively think about a game, thinking about how to change passive to active, rather than just relying on the brute force on the field to fight.
A month after the Nagano Winter Olympics, Yang Yang won three gold medals in the 1000m, 1500m and individual all-around at the World Championships in Vienna. In the next few years, regardless of the small competition, Yang Yang never lost again. From 1998 to 2001, Yang Yang achieved four consecutive world championships in the 1000 meters and all-around events, and achieved four consecutive championships in the 1500 meters at the World Cup. Until 2002, in the women's 500m final of short track speed skating at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Yang Yang won the championship with an absolute advantage, achieving a breakthrough of zero gold medals in the Chinese Winter Olympics.
Four years ago, the army defeated Nagano, and Yang Yang was not defeated. Good at learning from failure, only to have these achievements today, and the growth and transformation experienced along the way, for Yang Yang, far more than the meaning of the gold medal itself, she regards this as a very precious wealth in her life.
Sports have changed me and can make the world a better place
In 30 years of sports career, Yang Yang has achieved the ultimate in the field of competition, and her success is not only in the short track speed skating field, the strength of not accepting defeat, but also allowing her to have a broader world after being away from the field.
"'The only thing that can solve the problem is do something', just do it, sometimes you may not know what to do, but do what you have first, and by trying, to find something that can reach your heart." 」 After the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Yang Yang officially retired in Beijing, and at the crossroads of his life choice, Yang Yang told himself.
As an athlete, many people will choose to stay in the system to serve as an official and a half-job, but Yang Yang chooses to throw himself into an unknown world and begins to try continuously - to return to school, participate in the work of the 2008 Olympic Organizing Committee, establish a public welfare organization, join an international sports organization... "I must walk more, take the road that no one else takes, I don't need others to recognize." ”
Yang Yang attended the International Olympic Committee meeting in Lausanne in 2016
From his election as a member of the Islamic Federation Athletes' Committee in 1999, to the member of the World Anti-Doping Athletes Committee, the member of the IOC Women's and Sports Working Committee, the first IOC member elected as an athlete in China, the chairman of the Athletes' Committee of the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, and the latest identity, the Vice President of the World Anti-Doping Agency... This string of titles is exactly what Yang Yang has walked in international organizations over the years. After entering the international organization, Yang Yang realized that foreign affairs people do not understand the profession, professional people do not know foreign languages, she wants to bridge the gap between the two, change passive into active, and grasp the right to speak.
In June 1999, Yang Yang's first trip to the ITU Athletes' Committee was startled by the scene: representatives of other countries asked many questions, including finances, budgets, procedures for choosing a host location, and so on. Very nervous, she didn't know what to say for the first half of the journey.
During the tea break, Yang Yang went to the chairman and asked himself what he could do, and the chairman said: This is your sport, you should tell me what we should be able to do for athletes. Yang Yang thought to himself, "I never thought this was my sport, and I never thought that I would know more than anyone." "She was very excited at that moment.
After returning, the first thing Yang Yang did was to post a notice on the ice rink that read, "No smoking is allowed in the ice rink." At that time, the leader of the team saw it and said to her: Oh, it will be a long time to have a meeting.
In international organizations, a higher vision and a broader field have taught Yang Yang to think about problems from another angle, and has also prompted her to think more comprehensively and deeply about sports.
Yang Yang will combine his own experience and put forward constructive ideas for the venues: it is proposed that the Olympic venues engrave the names of the participating athletes on the wall, or leave the handprints and footprints of the winning athletes, so that the athletes here will leave not only the memories of a game, but also the real traces.
Yang Yang made a statement for Beijing's bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics
When he first participated in an international conference in 1999, Yang Yang still didn't speak a word of English, and he didn't even know how to transfer to a foreign country by plane. But in July 2015, dressed in a smart suit, she spoke in fluent English at the 128th meeting of the International Olympic Committee in Kuala Lumpur on Beijing's bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
On that day, Yang Yang made a statement in the morning and reported in the afternoon. Because she was also the chairman of the evaluation committee of the 2016 Lausanne Youth Olympic Games, Yang Yang rushed to change his clothes after the presentation, followed by the election of the IOC's Ethics Committee, she was also the nominee, and was finally elected as a member of the Ethics Committee.
Yang Yang later recalled that at the end of the meeting that day, many people came to her and said, "Today is Yang Yang's day, it is You Day, it is your holiday." “
In the more than two decades of running international sports organizations, Yang Yang has held almost 20 committees, large and small positions. For many years, she has traveled to and from the Olympic capital of Lausanne, where many international sports organizations are stationed, but Yang Yang has not even been to the music town opposite Lausanne, and most of her life is either on business trips or on the road.
Yang Yang said that she was lucky, and at every stage of her life, she could grasp her own destiny. This is the greatest happiness in life, and this luck stems from her consistent adherence to her beliefs, doing what she likes to do and should do the most, and her inner persistence has never wavered.
With his background as an athlete and many years of experience working in international sports organizations, Yang Yang can always show a more vivid, calm and confident side in front of the public. On the first day of the Chinese New Year, at the first press conference of the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee in the Year of the Tiger, Yang Yang was one of the protagonists. In response to the serial questions of domestic and foreign reporters, she can always cope with it freely, and some of the answers are vivid and convincing, "compared with the famous Americans to eat raw garlic" and "two Winter Olympics will receive roses", and it is not a problem to answer interview questions in English. From the "daughter of ice and snow" to the business card of the new image of Chinese sports, Yang Yang plays an increasingly important role in Chinese sports and even in world sports.
Although he is an official of an international organization, Yang Yang is approachable and has been liked and widely welcomed by many people. After each press conference, she will be "besieged" by reporters, and she will also greet and chat with media friends outside the venue, like an old friend who has not been seen for a long time.
Now, Yang Yang hopes that he can go further in international organizations. She always said that it was sport that made her more active, and after joining international organizations such as the International Olympic Committee, she realized that sport can also make the world a better place.
Starting from the dot of the athlete, in the turmoil of the times, Yang Yang(A)'s exploration of the boundaries of personal ability is exemplary.
"If I had to sum it up, I thought I might actually be a little more curious than others." Life is still very long, I don't want to give myself a premature score, from the level of my own efforts, I think there is an 80 points ok, do not score full marks, play full scores are too tired. ”
Written by Wang Mengru
Edited by Li Xu/Liang Lina
Visual Wang Ye