Author | Mule Horse Edit | Wang Dong
Sit at home, turn on the TV, tune to CCTV5 and enjoy the HD live broadcast of the Olympic Games. You listen to the commentary, now that it is the third round of table tennis women's singles, France vs. South Korea, what kind of spark will these two countries rub out?
Then you wonder: two uncompromising faces of Chinese appear on the screen, and their names, Yuan Jianan and Tian Zhixi, seem to have nothing to do with the national flag on their tracksuits.
In fact, French national player Yuan Jiannan and South Korean national hand Tian Zhixi are both fake foreigners, but they are also from China.
Yuan Jiannan was born in Zhengzhou and Tian Zhixi was born in Langfang, they grew up in the edification of peppery soup and donkey meat fire, and traveled to a foreign country around the age of 20.
Yuan Jiannan and Tian Zhixi's experience is not only their own. A total of 161 table tennis players participated in the Tokyo Olympics, 20 of whom were born in China – and the Chinese table tennis team has only 8 players on the list.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the scene of "Chinese playing Chinese" frequently appears in the Olympic table tennis field.
Why do so many foreign table tennis players come from China? In other words, why do so many Chinese athletes go abroad?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > The story of Xialian Ni</h1>
In the first round of women's table tennis at the Olympic Games, a 58-year-old aunt appeared on the field to represent Luxembourg against a Korean player in her 40s.
Her name is Ni Xialian.
Born in Shanghai, Ni Xialian was selected by the primary school team at the age of seven to start her table tennis career. After entering the sports school, she aspired to become a world champion, participated in various training camps and competitions, and finally won the opportunity to participate in the 1978 World Student Games, and won the first place.
The following year, Ni Xialian was selected for the national team. However, at that time, the national team was full of masters, Ni Xialian was small, and she was a newcomer, and she had never had the opportunity to play. It was not until 1982, when she finished second in the country, that she was given the opportunity to participate in the 37th World Table Tennis Championships.
In the World Table Tennis Championships, Ni Xialian won the gold medal and became the focus of the national team. However, just two years later, due to personnel changes in the team, Ni Xialian lost her qualification for the 38th World Table Tennis Championships.
It also meant that Ni Missed the 1988 Olympics. And due to the continuous influx of new players from the Chinese team, if she continues to stay in the national team, every future Olympic Games will not be related to her.
Participating in the Olympic Games is the long-cherished wish of every athlete. Just in time to catch up with the tide of going abroad, Ni Xialian naturally went to Europe and eventually joined the Luxembourg national team.
In Luxembourg at that time, the professionalization of table tennis was still a desert. Ni Xialian is here, and naturally has become a fragrant feast. The mayor received her personally, the coach fulfilled all her requests... Most importantly, in 2000, at the age of 37, Ni Xialian participated in the Sydney Olympic Games.
There was no way out at home, so he emigrated abroad to achieve his Olympic dream. Ni Xialian is the epitome of the Overseas Corps.
So why can't these people get ahead in the country? Is it because of their dishes?
No, it's because it's too hard to get a foothold in the national team.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="65" > the survival rule of the national team</h1>
What are the biggest limitations faced by The Chinese table tennis team over the past few decades?
Places.
At the 1999 World Table Tennis Championships, the Chinese team won the top eight in mixed and doubles events. The ITTF has decided that from the next World Table Tennis Championships, each country can only send a maximum of seven (pairs) of players to participate in each individual event.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the Chinese team won gold, silver and bronze medals in both men's and women's singles events. The following year, the ITTF decided that there would be only two places for each country in the 2012 London Olympics Table Tennis Tournament.
For domestic table tennis players, the limited number of places makes qualifying a fierce inner roll.
In China, if you want to become an Olympian, at least until you are 6 years old, you have to undergo systematic sports training. In this way, when you go to primary school, you have the opportunity to join the school table tennis team through the selection of materials at the basic level.
And that's just the beginning. On top of the basic material selection, there are three mountains waiting for you to cross the primary material selection, intermediate material selection and advanced material selection. In each material selection process, you also have to go through four stages: primary selection, double selection, orientation, and final selection.
To touch the threshold of the national team, you need to pass at least 16 purgatory levels. And most people, in the first level, will be brushed off.
If your ability is strong enough, lucky enough, and you successfully pass the selection of four levels, the final probability is that you have only joined the national second team. Only if you perform well enough, or beat the core players in the national competition, it is possible to advance to the first team.
Entering the first team is only a necessary and insufficient condition for participation in the Olympic Games. If you want to stand in the Olympic arena, you rely on the world ranking.
Taking the Tokyo Olympic Games as an example, according to the "Selection Measures for Table Tennis Projects to Participate in the Tokyo Olympic Games" issued by the Chinese Table Tennis Association, if you want to "win glory for the country with excellent results", the hard indicator is "the world's top 20".
In order to improve the world rankings, you have to participate in all levels of the international table tennis federation and earn points. The calculation method of points is quite complicated, and it is related to the result of the game, the level of the event, the gap between the two sides and other factors.
But roughly speaking, even if you have been playing against Fan Zhendong, Xu Xin, Ma Long and others in world-class events, you still need to win a full 60 games and secure the championship.
In China, the career of a table tennis player is short-lived: the average retirement age of national table tennis is only 30 years old.
There is a saying in the Go world that twenty years old is not a national player, and there is no hope for life.
For athletes who want to compete in the Olympics, they can't afford to wait. If you want to realize the Olympic dream, you can only "save the country by curves."
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="66" > wolf breeding program</h1>
Is the "loss" of athletes bad news for Chinese table tennis?
On the contrary, the Chinese Table Tennis Association also welcomes athletes to "go out".
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, three five-star red flags were slowly raised along with the "March of the Volunteer Army", which was very spectacular. Every Chinese was moved by the sight.
Supposedly, this is a great thing to promote our country's prestige, we just need to continue to train, keep in shape, and let the three flags fly over London, Sydney and Tokyo in succession.
However, Cai Zhenhua, who was the president of the Chinese Table Tennis Association at the time, found a serious problem: if the Chinese team has always dominated the table tennis world, then other countries will lose motivation, thereby reducing the energy investment in table tennis projects - anyway, they can't get medals, and what do they do in table tennis?
If table tennis finally becomes the self-amusement of Chinese people, it will lose its international commercial value, and it will not be good news for the future of Chinese table tennis.
In order to maintain the activity and competitiveness of table tennis in the world, Cai Zhenhua came up with a brilliant idea: their players are weak, let's teach; teach them, and send our players directly!
This "please come in, go out" policy is also known as the "wolf raising plan".
The French national hand Yuan Jiannan and the South Korean national hand Tian Zhixi mentioned at the beginning of the article are the by-products of the wolf raising plan. After these athletes went overseas, they not only achieved better personal development, but also improved the level of table tennis in their host countries to a certain extent.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="67" > traitor? White-eyed wolves? </h1>
Search for words such as "Yuan Jiannan", "Tian Zhixi", "Overseas Corps", "Wolf Raising Plan", "traitor", "white-eyed wolf" and other titles always appear in front of us.
In the view of some netizens, if athletes leave their home countries and choose to serve other countries instead, this kind of behavior is no different from "traitors".
But in fact, in modern society, the international mobility of athletes is a fairly common thing.
Some athletes are for sports careers, Yuan Jiannan and Tian Zhixi are in this category;
Some athletes are introduced as talents by their host countries, such as The Slovenian men's basketball player Toby of the Olympic Games;
There are also athletes for other personal reasons, such as gymnast Chusovkina (fundraising for her son's illness).
Over the years, our country has also accepted many such "naturalized athletes".
Track and field athlete Zheng Ninali, of mixed Chinese and German descent, is originally from Canada
From Brazilian football foreign aides such as Fernando and Elkeson to overseas Chinese with Chinese ancestry such as Gu Ailing and Zheng Ninali, after naturalizing China, they have won many awards for China and achieved many personal honors.
The mobility of athletes not only helps athletes realize their personal value, but also helps exchanges between countries and improves the level of competition.
After all, sports know no borders, sportsmanship spreads around the world, and that's what the Olympics are all about.