Interview with | the captain of the Korean curling women's team who went to Shanghai to coach for Ai, what is going on now? (Top)
The Beijing Winter Olympics came to an end, and most Chinese people's enthusiasm for ice and snow sports has just been ignited.
Facing the reality, most of China, especially in the south, the current foundation for ice and snow sports is still weak. Venues and facilities are under construction on a large scale, but the biggest problem facing the post-Olympic era is that these sports often lack a mass base and professional coaches.
In the past decade, under the policy of "North Ice South Exhibition", curling has become a breakthrough in Shanghai's ice and snow sports. In 2017, Kim Ji-sun, the captain of the South Korean women's curling national team, was invited by the Shanghai Municipal Sports Bureau to serve as the head coach of the Shanghai Youth Curling Team. In October 2020, she left the Shanghai Youth Team and was hired as the coach of the curling high-level sports team of Shanghai University of International Business and Economics (hereinafter referred to as the Shanghai University of Economics and Business), and her husband, Xu Xiaoming, the former main player of the Chinese curling men's team, also taught in the curling team of the school.
A month ago, Xu Xiaoming entered the closed loop as a technical official in curling at the Beijing Winter Olympics. "I also want to participate in the Winter Olympics, no matter what I have done in the past." Kim Ji-sun has only one Winter Olympic experience as an athlete, which is a great regret for her.
Recently, the Morning News reporter chatted with Jin Zhishan and listened to her talk about the current situation and dilemma of curling in Shanghai, as well as her own transnational marriage that had caused a sensation.
In the process, we have come to realize that her experience has gone beyond the scope of general sports, and it reveals the journey of a professional woman who bravely pursues what she loves and resolutely chooses between family and personal dreams.
What does it mean to be the youngest team?
Jin Zhishan said in the interview that the Chinese women's curling team is the youngest of all the participating teams with the youngest average age.
The oldest of the team is Wang Rui, who participated in the last PyeongChang Winter Olympics, but she is actually only 27 years old. China Youth Daily also noted this in an opinion piece, "The members of other participating teams are basically more than six or seven years older than the Chinese team members, and most of the athletes have at least one Olympic experience." ”
Those familiar with curling should know that the Chinese women's team won the 2009 Curling World Championships and the bronze medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Wang Bingyu, the biggest hero who won the championship that year, experienced a comeback after getting married and having children, and participated in the Pyeongchang Olympic Games with Wang Rui. We can find out from this that there is actually a huge gap between the two generations of players. Kim Ji-sun pointed out,
"It's not that young people don't have the strength, but in curling, a lot of times it's still about experience. In contrast, the Japanese and Korean teams do not have such a clear break. ”
Take Kim Eun-jing, the captain of the women's curling team at the Olympic Games in South Korea, as an example, she was born in 1990, and at the age of 32, she was a year of playing in the curling field and had rich experience, while there was no such team member in the Chinese team.
One of the reasons for the break is that the development of curling in China is not widespread, so a healthy and orderly talent reserve system has not been established. Of the five women's team members who competed in the Winter Olympics, four were from Heilongjiang and one from Beijing. In addition to the three northeastern provinces, other provinces and cities in the country still carry out curling sports is still very limited, and most of them are mainly interested and experienced, resulting in narrow material selection, less talent transportation, and lack of competition among team members.
There is no curling hall, and the team rents a field to train
As a breakthrough in The Ice and Snow Movement in Shanghai, curling has quietly appeared in the city as early as ten years ago. In February 2012, the Curling Team of Shanghai University of International Business and Economics was officially established, which is the first university curling team in China.
According to statistics at the time, there were only 25 athletes engaged in curling in Shanghai, of which 15 were from Shanghai University of Economics and Trade, and the other 10 were middle school students in Xuhui District and Songjiang District. According to the data given by Liberation Daily in 2019, there are nearly 300 curlers in Shanghai, and this upward speed can certainly not be described as fast.
In the past 10 years, Shanghai has carried out curling in a combination of sports and education. Taking Xuhui District, where curling was first carried out, as an example, the Affiliated Middle School of East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai Middle School and Nanyang Middle School have cooperated with the Weiyu Sports School to carry out joint training, forming a "one-stop" layout of curling. Shanghai Economic and Trade University is the dragon's dragon, but because there is no curling hall, the leading role of the dragon is currently greatly restricted.
The construction of a curling hall on campus has been included in the 14th Five-Year Plan, but there is no definite information as to which year construction will officially begin.
Kim Ji-sun's curling team, which he now teaches at the Shanghai University of Economics and Trade, consists of two parts of students, most of whom have no curling foundation and only begin to contact the sport after entering the university; the remaining part are special students who practiced curling in middle school and received a second-level athlete certificate. In this way, there are thirty or forty members of the combined team.
Usually, the team trains at the Yuanzu Dream World rental venue in Qingpu, and the expenses are borne by the university. From the university to here, it takes more than an hour to go back and forth, and the inconvenience of transportation leads to irregular training of some team members, which affects the quality of training to a certain extent.
"Most people are in their freshman year and start practicing, which requires more practice, but some team members come today and don't come tomorrow." If punishment is imposed, I am afraid that people will not come at all. Kim Ji-sun was worried,
"Because the team was originally just these people, the main thing at the moment is to maintain it. There are many amateur interest clubs in Shanghai, but a regular team like ours, just one, still hopes to be maintained. ”
Transportation is not one thing, and some senior students face the pressure of graduation and employment, and there will be laxity in training. "Especially the special enrollment of high-level teams, I am afraid that my learning progress will not be able to keep up, resulting in graduation." Studies and training are a natural contradiction, and Kim Ji-sun remembered that when he was a graduate student in South Korea, it took five years to complete two years of study, because there was no time for classes.
Young athletes lack career advancement pathways
But in fact, the emergence of this situation has its deep reasons.
When Jin Zhishan came to Shanghai, the city had established an echelon structure, with juvenile teams and youth teams at the municipal level. She started as the coach of the Shanghai Curling Youth Team and later became the head coach of the Youth Team. But if the team members want to go up to the municipal professional team, there is no channel.
In fact, the Municipal Education Commission, the Municipal Sports Bureau, and the Shanghai Economic and Trade University had earlier signed an agreement on the joint construction of a curling team by the three parties, and according to the agreement, the Shanghai Economic and Trade University would constitute the main body of the Shanghai curling adult team. As a result, the varsity team has twice represented China at the Winter Universiade and Shanghai at the 13th National Winter Games. They also won the third place in the Chinese Curling Championship. Unfortunately, due to some obstacles in the later period, the development of the Shanghai curling adult team was affected. As a result, shanghai's young athletes who love curling cannot continue to pursue their dreams. Jin Zhishan remembered the team member Qu Hang, who he had brought with him when he was in the youth team, a player with great potential who had been selected for the national youth training team, but could not develop to a higher platform at present.
Therefore, for the members of the Shanghai Economic and Trade Curling Team, who is now coached by Jin Zhishan, in the face of the reality that there is almost no room for career advancement, it is of course safer to graduate and find a job.
This is the dilemma of Jin Zhishan's coaching, and it is also the dilemma of the development of curling in Shanghai.
She hopes that after the development of Shanghai in the next few years, a more complete curling player training system can be established, so that more players trained by the city itself have a channel to rise on the career road. This problem is also faced by other cities in China that have carried out curling in recent years.
"To really improve the level of the national team, we can't rely on the northeast region alone to send talents to the national team." In South Korea, although the places are small, there are players in each place who enter the national team. ”
Kim Ji Sun hopes that he can continue to teach,
"Because there are not many people practicing curling themselves, and even fewer people have experience." If we all give up, no one will practice in the future. ”
Curling's entry into Asia was short, and when Kim Ji-sun and his team practiced curling, the curling coaches at the time were all non-professionals. "We have some curling brothers and sisters, but there are no more in front of us. Now, if we as professionals don't teach, the program won't last. Many school curling teams are taught by physical education teachers, and theoretical knowledge can be learned from books, but they have no experience in professional competitions. Why is Canadian curling so strong, because they are all professional athletes doing coaching, experience is too important. ”