Just now, the final round of the Beijing Winter Olympics freestyle ski women's aerial skills final was decided. China's Xu Mengtao won the gold medal.
"Meet Tao Gong in your dreams, laugh and look at the red dust", this is an allusion to the source of Xu Mengtao's name, which was given by her aunt, Liu Lanfang, a famous Chinese storyteller. "I hope that Xiao Mengtao's future life can be carefree forever."
However, once you step into the door of athletes, there is no "carefree" to speak of. Fortunately, no matter what she has experienced and how many injuries she has suffered, she is still the little dream peach, the cute girl who laughs and has dimples.
Four years ago, Xu Mengtao burst into tears in Pyeongchang, crying so much that everyone was distressed. Four years later, on the field in front of her home, she finally raised her eyebrows and realized her dream of Beijing.
After 12 years of waiting, this gold medal, although late but late, belongs to the highlight moment of the 31-year-old "Elder of the Four Dynasties", and finally came.
Her parents opened a barbecue shop for 20 years for her to practice sports
She stood on the field with steel nails
Xu Mengtao was born in 1990 to an ordinary family in Anshan, Liaoning Province, where his father Xu Xuejun and mother Wang Fengli had no other income and relied on an "old Xu meat skewer" barbecue restaurant to make ends meet.
Since childhood, Xu Mengtao has been a filial piety child, even if she won the silver medal at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, after returning to Anshan, she first went to her own small shop to help her parents skewer meat skewers, serve dishes, and become a barbecue chef.
In fact, Xu Mengtao first practiced gymnastics. When Xu Mengtao was very young, the father found that his daughter's legs could be easily separated by 180 degrees, and her body flexibility was quite good. So when Xu Mengtao was four years old, she was sent to the gymnastics training class of Anshan Gymnastics School and began an 8-year gymnastics career.
However, as Xu Mengtao's figure grew taller and her kneecap was larger than that of a normal gymnast, she was no longer suitable for gymnastics. So in 2002, Xu Mengtao turned around and practiced freestyle skiing aerial techniques known as "snow gymnastics".
In front of her parents, Xu Mengtao always said words of relief to them, and in the face of many netizens who supported her, she always smiled with a sunny face, she posted selfies on Weibo, sent funny photos, and ridiculed her injured leg.
For ice and snow athletes, the legs are life, and Xu Mengtao's "life" is already scarred.
At the 13th National Winter Games in 2016, Xu Mengtao failed to challenge the difficulty factor of 3.8, and fell heavily on the slope when landing, causing the anterior cruciate ligament to rupture, had to remove nearly 70% of the lateral meniscus during the operation, and was hit with 3 steel nails in the knee.
Since then, every time the training landed, Xu Mengtao had to endure severe pain, and even so, she still wanted to try her best to show a flowing and graceful posture in the air.
During the time of the injury, Xu Mengtao thought about giving up, "In the first season of the postoperative return, there were countless 'want to give up', but there was only one reason for me to stick to it - I wanted to meet that better and stronger self." ”
In fact, Xu Mengtao has already written his name into the history of the sport of aerial skills. At the End of last year's Aerial Skills World Cup in Ruka, Finland, Xu Mengtao won his 26th World Cup title, thus becoming the first person in the history of the World Cup. In the subsequent mixed men's and women's team competitions, the Chinese team won the championship, and Xu Mengtao raised the championship record to 27.
Several times passed by the Olympic gold medal
The glory that belongs to her is late but late
It is such a world champion, but it has always rubbed shoulders with the Olympic gold medal. And this is also a "spell" of the freestyle skiing aerial skills women's team. Since the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics won a silver medal, freestyle skiing aerial skills have been the dominant sport of the Chinese Winter Olympic team. However, the Chinese women's team has been unlucky, since the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, four consecutive Winter Olympics have won silver medals, and have never been related to gold medals.
In Vancouver in 2010, Xu Mengtao played in the Winter Olympics for the first time. Unexpectedly, Xu Mengtao, who was in the middle of the day, suffered an injury at this time, and the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee was broken during a game. After a difficult recovery period, injuries directly affected Xu Mengtao's condition, coupled with inexperience, Vancouver only ranked 6th.
In 2014, Sochi was the "closest" to the gold medal for Xu Mengtao. However, in the summer of that year, she suffered another injury, the cervical disc herniation caused her entire arm to be numb, and Xia Xun rested for more than a month, delaying the rhythm of training. Xu Mengtao, who was in an urgent mood after recovering from the injury, rubbed shoulders with the gold medal and finally won a silver medal.
In Pyeongchang in 2018, she was originally closer to the gold medal. However, she came on the field with steel nails and completely unbalanced after landing in the second round, rolling down and missing the third round. After the game, Xu Mengtao burst into tears in Pyeongchang. Competitive sports are so cruel, all the training, recovery, griting teeth, in an hour of the game, everything is in vain.
In the three Winter Olympics, Xu Mengtao has been fighting against injuries, and every time he obviously feels that he has won, he is still a little bit worse. On February 10, at the Beijing Winter Olympics freestyle skiing aerial skills mixed team competition, Xu Mengtao and Jia Zongyang and Qi Guangpu, who are also the "elders of the Four Dynasties", partnered, and after the outstanding performance in the final round, Xu Mengtao could not hold back the excitement in her heart and screamed, but when she saw her teammate Jia Zongyang's mistake, she still chose to send a hug to comfort her teammates at the first time. At the post-match award ceremony, when the two teammates wore silver medals to celebrate, Xu Mengtao did not hold back her tears after all.
The gold medal was close at hand, but it still slipped away. But tonight, the gold medal finally belonged to Xu Mengtao.
Source: Qianjiang Evening News All-Media Editing and Dispatching Center Synthesized from Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News Reporters Zong Qianqian and Cao Linbo Correspondents Li Wenyao and Xinhua News Agency
Column Editor-in-Chief: Qin Hong Text Editor: Song Yanlin Caption Source: Xinhua News Agency Photo Editor: Su Wei
Source: Author: Qianjiang Evening News