Song Qiwu's ice and snow legend has just begun
"Ski jumping is a lonely sport."
No matter what kind of disturbances he faced, Song Qiwu could always calm himself down with this sentence - standing on a high platform of more than 100 meters, letting the cold wind blow by his side, and only the helper slide and landing slope below his eyes, at this time, he could only rely on himself.
Perhaps it is ski jumping, a project that belongs only to the lonely and brave, that gives Song Qiwu, who has just passed the age of the weak crown, a maturity that does not match his age.
Just live
Song Qiwu was a 400-meter hurdles athlete in the Sichuan team and entered the ski jumping national training team in 2018 through cross-border cross-sports selection. When he first learned about the sport of ski jumping, his performance can be described as embarrassing. On the 4-meter platform set up for beginners, Song Qiwu jumped down again and again, fell down again and again, and never landed in a standing position, let alone a standard flight and landing posture. Recalling his experience at that time, Song Qiwu said: "At that time, I thought it would be good to survive. ”
Although his mouth spoke of fear, Song Qiwu had never left behind a training session, a jump. Experienced coaches also quickly discovered his talent: the original 400m hurdles gave him a body shape and excellent explosiveness that was perfect for ski jumping.
But the coach also stressed that these talents need to be developed through hard work. For example, ski jumping requires athletes to continuously pedal before leaving the platform, and the pedaling position is concentrated in the middle front of the soles of the feet. This requirement is clearly different from the short span project's emphasis on ground pickpocketing and forefoot pedaling. This also means that if Song Qiwu wants to bring his explosive power to the high platform, he must forget the power method of the 400-meter hurdles and re-establish a set of action modes suitable for ski jumping.
In this long adjustment and adaptation, the coach saw a more valuable talent in Song Qiwu: "He loves the sport, maintains a desire for progress, and knows very well what he wants." ”
From K4 to K9, from K9 to K12, and then to K50, K90, K140, for three and a half years, Song Qiwu has maintained this love and desire, always pestering the coach to let himself "jump again" when jumping on the stage, when training at the Peking University Jug base, it is often that most of his teammates have finished training at the bottom of the mountain to change equipment, Song Qiwu also has to sit on the cable car and jump again. After each day's training, on the way back to the dormitory, he asked the coach to make an appointment to watch the training video and talk about the movements. Even in the English class in the team, he was the most active, and during the training interval, he always asked the translators and scientific research in the team, "How do you pronounce the word that the foreign teacher just said?" What is the meaning? ”
Eager to learn, love, and desire to succeed, these qualities support Song Qiwu to gradually cash in on his talents, and in three and a half years, he grew from a ski jumper who had never seen snow to a mature athlete who swept all the national championship titles. But he wasn't carried away by the results, as the coach said, "He knows exactly what he wants." Before each game, Song Qiwu always humbly said that the requirement for himself was to "play normally". And he did play all the way to the normal, unlocking a long-lost winter Olympic ski jumping men's quota for the Chinese team, and finally stepped on the starting door of the National Ski Jumping Center at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Lose 1 kilogram in four days Self-discipline is his secret
Ski jumping is an extremely demanding sport for athletes. It is often joked that "ski jumpers practice a good sport that can keep in shape." "But in fact, the hardships that athletes pay to maintain their figure are unimaginable to ordinary people." The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics women's individual standard table champion Lun Derby missed the entire 2021/2022 season due to a failure in weight management.
Song Qiwu's three meals a day must be strictly controlled intake, the coach in charge will take pictures of the athlete's three meals every day to record, nutrition experts will also give professional diet feedback and guidance on a regular basis; weighing more than twice a day is the basic operation. This is undoubtedly a kind of torture for Song Qiwu from Sichuan, a food resort with heavy oil and salt. However, he still insists on controlling his weight fluctuations within 0.3kg for a long time through scientific diet and training.
In October 2020, Song Qiwu took a leave of absence to return to the province to handle the registration procedures for the college entrance examination. After a short stay at the Sichuan Provincial Sports School, he failed to resist the temptation to live in his hometown canteen and gained 1kg when he returned to the team. When he weighed himself on the night of returning to the team, Song Qiwu's responsible coach was very angry - 1kg of weight would bring a great burden to the athletes during the flight, and the athletes' pedaling power and landing feelings would also be greatly affected.
Song Qiwu immediately issued a military order: "Give me 5 days, and I will definitely restore my weight to the original level without affecting the training state." ”
In the next few days, in addition to completing training every day with quality and quantity, Song Qiwu also more strictly controlled his own intake of oil and carbs, and would go to the gym for aerobic training when he had spare strength in training. In just 4 days, he returned his weight to his original level. Coming down from the scale, Song Qiwu mischievously patted the responsible coach's shoulder, "See? This is the self-discipline of good athletes. ”
Of course, the collective life of the national team sometimes bothers the self-disciplined him. Physical flexibility is very important for ski jumpers, and teams set a fixed time point every day for the whole team to stretch and flexibility training. The tight training rhythm makes Song Qiwu feel tired, and as an athlete in his early twenties, he also longs to have more time of his own, so he hopes to be able to arrange stretching and flexibility training on his own.
At the time when the training load was the greatest, Song Qiwu had clearly shown impatience with collective stretching, and even confronted the responsible coach. The coach also told him a lot, "The team gives you good protection, and naturally will ask you to give up some of your rights." If you were completely free to train on your own, where would you get such a good resource? ”
Song Qiwu, who wanted to understand the reasoning, took the initiative to send a WeChat apology to the coach. Competitive sports emphasize the five elements of athletes' physical fitness, technology, tactics, psychology and intelligence. The beijing winter olympic preparation cycle coincided with the critical stage of Song Qiwu's growth, during which he not only gained better physical fitness and skills, but also experienced psychological tempering and accumulated rich life experience.
The big boy was praised by idol Su Bingtian
Although he has grown into a mature ski jumper, at the same time, Song Qiwu is still just a big boy.
During the break, this young man has the idleness and ease characteristic of Sichuanese people - reading books, swinging with the coach, and once liked to play poker for a while.
Song Qiwu also has a soft side, he often said: "My parents and family are very hard, I want to practice hard!" His brother also often cheered for his brother in the circle of friends, saying that he was "chasing his own family's star." Song Qiwu also chased the stars, he was engaged in sprint training before, and his idol was Su Bingtian, a famous mainland sprinter and who created a Chinese legend at the Tokyo Olympic Games. After Su Bingtian learned that he had such a little fan, he also recorded a video to cheer him up: "In the next Beijing Winter Olympics, I hope you can overcome yourself and bloom!" ”
At the Beijing Winter Olympics, no matter what the result was, this Sichuan boy defeated himself on the high platform of the Winter Olympics and wrote a new chapter belonging to the Chinese men's ski jumping.
Written by/Ruda
Editor/Li Xu Liang Lina
Visual/Wang Ye