Sui Wenjing/Han Cong: Cross the 0.43 minute gap across that sad river

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 19

Xinhua News Agency reporters Zhang Han, Wang Junbao and Le Wenwan

The end of the free slide, the tears accumulated earlier, Sui Wenjing could not bear it.

From missing the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic gold medal four years ago with a difference of 0.43 points, to narrowly defeating the Russian duo of Tarasova/Morozov by a slight margin of 0.63 points on the evening of the 19th, Sui Wenjing and Han Cong wrote another brilliant chapter for the Chinese Ice and Snow Army at the Beijing Winter Olympics with a gold medal.

IOC President Bach, who witnessed China's pair skating once again to the top, said: "This is the glory of figure skating! ”

Deserved? It's a backwater battle!

Starting with the fifth chinese duo peng cheng/Jin Yang in the short program, the contestants who played in reverse order of the results set a new personal season record one after another, and the short program only had 0.16 points less than Sui Wenjing/Han Cong's Tarasova/Morozov free skating score directly soared to 155.00, nearly 10 points more than Sui Wenjing/Han Cong's season high score.

Sui Wenjing, who was standing outside the entrance of the reserve field after watching the opponent's program, began to wear a knife holster to simulate a turn in the air, and Han Cong behind her calmly watched her partner spinning in place.

They are not bottomless. The list of planned actions clearly states that as soon as they start, they twist around, and the whole scene is the only one.

But it's a move they haven't done in four years. More than a month ago, when the public training, because the success rate of the two twisted for three weeks was as high as 95%, someone asked whether they were ready to "play difficult" in the Winter Olympics, and coach Zhao Hongbo's answer at that time was "based on self, mainly stability".

The melody of "The Golden Bridge on the River of Sorrow" sounded, Sui Wenjing and Han Cong danced on familiar notes, stepping on the ice, sliding, the emotions brewed to the first high point, Han Cong grabbed his partner's waist and hands to exert force, Sui Wenjing flew out, rotated, the number of weeks was sufficient, and the ice fell steadily!

"Twisting four can be more than two points more than twisting three." The old marshal Yao Bin explained to reporters on the other end of the phone.

"At the critical moment, it depends on who has more courage and can grasp the rhythm!" Zhao Hongbo said.

Fighting hard to "twist four", making up for the ice drop defect of sui Wenjing's three-week single jump in the inner ring, and spelling out the opponent whose technology and state are also at the peak.

From the beginning of the team competition on the morning of the 4th to the end of the pair skating on the evening of the 19th, Sui Wenjing's most profound experience is the torment of waiting: "I especially want to play, to fight, to show, to watch others play, to get cards to see itchy, very anxious." But in the past 16 days, Sui Wenjing's most common sentence to reporters is, "Everything is the best arrangement." ”

Fatalistic? She and Han Cong were the most unbelieving. How many times have people said that they are not the best combination of pair skating, boys are not tall and strong, girls are a little fat and afraid of not moving; girls are late in their enlightenment, and when they go to try ice, they will only figure skating basic steps.

However, it is the two people who are not born with superior conditions, "holding hands" the first international competition in the second year has become the "biggest discovery" of the season, and in 2009, the two ISU youth competitions won the championship with more than 20 points from the second place.

In 2010, they were promoted to the group and won three World Youth Championships, they finished second in the China Cup Grand Prix, the United States entered the top three, and the first adult season was shortlisted for the finals and won the third place. More than a year later, Sui won the 2012 Four Continents Championship, the first senior world championship they participated in, and the two were later crowned three times in 2014, 2016 and 2017.

Missing the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, but winning the silver twice at the 2015 and 2016 World Championships, Sui Han gradually provoked the "post-Shenxue Zhao Hongbo era" Chinese pair skating beam.

But injuries soon became a glaring divider for the two of them to support each other and grow up together. In May 2016, Sui Wenjing underwent a four-hour surgery with a ligament injury to her feet, followed by a month of bed rest and two months of land recovery. And Han Cong, in addition to going to the hospital every week to accompany her to eat and walk, is a person who buries his head in training and practices his own female companion's movements.

That summer, Han Cong also took Xiao Sui to participate in a performance, at first he was alone on the ice, but the choreography was still a two-person program, and he even made a lift, a one-man lift. "In the end, I pushed her onto the ice and a lot of people cried." At the press conference after winning the 2017 World Championships in Helsinki, Han Cong told this story, and everyone present laughed, and they also laughed.

People who can't be defeated by injuries will only return stronger, the "onion barrel combination" won the world championship twice in 2017 and 2019, and the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics is only one step away from the gold medal. And their winter Olympic cycle, with Sui Wenjing's right foot stress fracture forced to operate as the beginning, to Han Cong's hip surgery to draw a rest, this time, in the male partner's long recovery period, Sui Wenjing also found other combinations to borrow male partners to practice together, and even pulled head coach Zhao Hongbo to practice lifting.

In March 2021, Sui Wenjing/Han Cong won silver at the Stockholm World Championships in just eight weeks after a 13-month absence, and more than half a year later, they returned to the Olympic season with "The Golden Bridge on the River of Sorrows", which they had skied in the 2016-2017 season, and stood on the top podium three times in less than a month, including the Beijing Winter Olympics Test Match and Figure Skating Asian Open on the first ice, and the two Grand Prix in Canada and Italy.

This song is a free skating track when they first appeared on the top podium of the World Championships in 2017, and the old song is newly arranged, telling how the "onion barrel combination" plagued by injuries and illnesses supports each other and grows together.

They said that the original intention of composing this track five years ago was because Sui Wenjing had just experienced an injury at that time, and Han Cong became the "bridge" that helped her get out of her difficulties; in this cycle, both of them had different injuries and became each other's "bridge".

"Before going on the pitch, I knew that the opponent did a good job and there was a lot of pressure, and Xiao Sui said to me, 'We can definitely do it, our first gold medal was brought to us by this music, and we can do it today.'" Han Cong said.

At that time, the sentence he gave back to Sui Wenjing also quickly had the best response. "Overcome the ego and be invincible", they did. (Participating reporters: Wang Jingyu, Wang Chunyan, Zhu Hong, Zhao Xuetong, Huang Xinxin, Wang Yan) (End)