Ended a full day of filming,
Gu Ailing sat idly in the back seat of the car,
The whole face was covered by the setting sun
A layer of golden color.
It was an ordinary day after the Winter Olympics.
It was also a typical day in her life for a long time to come—
After the championship,
She was looking for some new direction for herself.
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Gu Ailing did not expect that in the month after the end of the Winter Olympics, what she needed to adapt to most was not the new identity of the Olympic champion, but to try to learn to let go and say goodbye.
When she finally stood on the podium and achieved a good result of 2 gold and 1 silver, in addition to ecstasy, she had some unexpected emotions to deal with, "I feel that I have not returned to normal." "If her journey from a little girl with a dream of champions to a Winter Olympic champion is a climb that took years, then the process of recovery now is to let the heart gradually fall from the clouds." Before that, no one had told her that standing at the top was such a feeling, that everything was entirely new and unknown.
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As early as the official conclusion of the Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing had already tried to let himself learn to say goodbye. "Four or five days after the race, I went to the big jump and cried there." During that time, Gu Ailing has been the focus of the camera, people admire her in the gap between waiting for the results and calmly tasting the leek box, as if she won the championship is expected, and also think that winning the championship must mean everything is satisfactory - but few people remember, even if her ID is called "Frog Princess Ailing", she is not living in a fairy tale with only happy ending, real life has ups and downs, and so does her emotions.
"After crying, it feels a little better, a bit like putting an end to the end of the story and putting it to rest in your head." It is not an "emo", when she has invested too much effort to look forward to the beginning of the Winter Olympics, and on the day of the end, a kind of empty frustration in her heart inevitably comes, and this frustration has nothing to do with the fact that she has won a few gold medals. This time, when she returned to the big jump that had made her experience the ultimate happiness the other day, everything seemed like a tiny cycle, "Put this experience in a small box and continue to live." ”
This is not "Versailles". When she was first disturbed by this emotion, Gu Ailing was also confused, but she quickly found a scientific explanation for herself: "People will produce a high amount of cortisol in the game, exceeding the normal amount, a bit like the excitement of an animal being chased by other animals, but when it is over, it suddenly 'falls down', and the body is still adapting to the original state, which is a bit like a withdrawal reaction." ”
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At the Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing will participate in three events in succession, from the opening of the Winter Olympics on February 4 to feel the atmosphere of this event, to February 18, when she finally completed the third event of the freestyle ski women's U-shaped field skills, for 15 consecutive days, she has been in this high level of excitement. "The whole person is mobilized, including the immune system, the resistance will be strengthened, and it will not make you sick." Although she had consulted some skiers who had participated in the Winter Olympics before, and it was normal to hear that it was normal for the situation to fluctuate in such a top event center, others could only share some stories with her, and could not give any specific advice. Especially after the third competition, the end of the drug test, in the gap when many media gathered around to congratulate her, it seemed that all the senses were reactivated, instantly switching to a brand new channel - and after a while, when she stood on the podium and harvested her third "golden pier", she knew that this dream that had been done for ten years was successfully over.
Before participating in this Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing only had two big goals in his growth process, one was to enter Stanford University, and the other was to participate in this Winter Olympics. It has been a fantasy for Gu Ailing since Beijing's successful bid for the Winter Olympics in 2015, when she was only 12 years old and already looking forward to showing off her favorite skiing in Beijing.
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"There are two happiest moments on the slopes, one is learning new moves, which means breaking your boundaries and overcoming feelings of fear; the other is winning the race, which means overcoming stress." From the age of 8 to the winter weekend holiday ski team, Gu Ailing has been putting herself in the loop of learning new moves and winning races. When watching the Olympic Games, which brings together the world's top athletes, everyone always says that this group of people are challenging the limits on behalf of human beings, in fact, for athletes, every training is to the limits of their own bodies.
"Learning new movements is scary because it's trying something you've never done before, and your body and brain will feel unsafe and are telling you, 'Don't do it,' so you have to overcome that fear and practice until your body feels comfortable." When it comes to practicing skiing for so many years, which point he is obsessed with this sport, Gu Ailing's answer is not the result of a certain competition, but a "feeling". For her, the most important thing is to ski to get herself to a seemingly impossible achievement, and even the more afraid she is, the more worthy of challenge. "So the more scared I am, the happier I am."
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This thrill of seeking ultimate satisfaction from the ultimate adventure reached its peak when Gu Ailing participated in the final jump of the winter Olympics freestyle ski women's big jump. In that game, with the first two jumps, she was able to win the runner-up steadily, which was a good result for this project that she was not the best at. But in the last jump, she still chose the "left turn bi-weekly axis rotation 1620", an action that had never been tried before. "When I did 1620, it was the second I was most happy about the whole Winter Olympics." In retrospect, the judgment at that time was not impulsive, but came from her original intention of skiing: "Learning difficult new moves and winning competitions, usually these two goals are separate, but 1620 let me do it at the same time, it was the most stressful second for me, and it was the most special second in my life." ”
A second later, Gu Ailing completed several achievements to challenge the limits: it was the first freestyle ski women's big jump gold medal ever in the Winter Olympics, and the first Winter Olympic event Gu Ailing participated in, "I became the youngest freestyle skier in history to win a gold medal, both men and women." ”
At the crucial moments of many games, even the audience sitting in front of the TV is likely to be nervous enough to cover their eyes and dare not watch - but this is the moment when Gu Ailing is full of energy.
"The greater the pressure, the better, and the pressure is equal to energy, depending on how you use it." Some people will not use it, and the psychology will collapse. But if you know how to turn it into your own energy, the more stressful it is, the more energy you have. ”
Although sometimes Gu Ailing herself will feel afraid in retrospect, she can always use a benign attitude to deal with these pressures condensed on the field. They can't see or touch, but they have a magical ability to influence the outcome of the game. The world's best athletes standing on the Winter Olympic field ultimately fight for the ability to withstand this pressure.
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When Gu Ailing completed the first history-making freestyle ski women's big jump final, she stood up to the shouts of the audience and exchanged the courage to finally challenge 1620. It was her first match at the Winter Olympics, and the audience had great expectations for her, and this expectation has happened to many of the top athletes who play at home in the past. At that critical moment, although everyone knew that there were 12 athletes participating equally, everyone had a special concern for Gu Ailing in their hearts, and even the host on the scene filled the atmosphere, not only broadcasting the athletes' results and latest rankings in real time, but also encouraging everyone loudly in Chinese and English respectively, "Let's shout up and say 'Gu Ailing, come on!'" ’”
"They were only 100 meters away from me and I could hear them very clearly, so I took my phone out and turned the music in my headphones very loudly." In that atmosphere, every pair of eyes is a pressure, and every word of cheer may make her want to break through a little more, and may also make her pressure heavier. In this way, she hopes to blur some of the cheering sounds slightly, and then she can sink her heart and rehearse the action of going to go in her mind. At this time, she had to choose herself to see if she could really turn the pressure into energy.
The same tension also appeared in the final of her strengths event, the women's U-shaped field skill of freestyle skiing. The host that day even knew how to make the atmosphere of the spectators reach a climax, and would loudly tell the audience that in this project, "Gu Ailing has not lost in two years", and when each player appeared, he used her as a yardstick to explain how high she was compared with Gu Ailing. At such a moment of full attention, the slightest weakness in psychological endurance will be nervous to "suffocate", but Gu Ailing's solution is to return to the normal mind, with one specific action after another, to dissolve the emotions that are pressing on her heart, so that she is too busy to be nervous.
"There will be 10 to 15 minutes between training and competition, and in this gap between cleaning up the field, I'll warm up, stand on top and go through the movements that I'm going to do for a while. Then I would say a few words to the U slot according to the feeling of the day, and then go back to the athletes' rest area. ”
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Then, it was Gu Ailing who rushed to her battlefield again and again, as if she couldn't hear the voice behind her, nor could she feel the pressure brought to her by the outside world. "Freestyle skiing is inherently a very free thing, there's nothing you have to do, it's all about enjoyment. Only when you enjoy the feeling of freedom and let the referee see that you are skating the most fun, can you get a high score. When people lamented countless times that Gu Ailing had a "big heart" and could enjoy the game without distraction, she had already put herself out of those constraints and truly enjoyed the freedom as if she were flying into the sky.
It is precisely because of the extreme satisfaction experienced at this Winter Olympics that Gu Ailing recalled some of the competitions he had participated in in the past, only to find that even if he had achieved good results at the beginning, those experiences were actually not 100% complete. For her, even if she is already good enough to be "unprecedented" in the face of many achievements, she knows that she is not a perfect person, and she does not want people to mistakenly think that she is a perfect person.
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"Every win before this time, I feel like I've done a good job of training for the Olympics. Although I kept talking about enjoying the process, every time it was like holding my breath, waiting to see what the next time was, what was next. In fact, I can enjoy it more, which is a bit of a pity. ”
Before the opening of the Winter Olympics, the INTERNATIONAL Snow Federation reported that she had praised her: "Gu Ailing has done nothing but win this season. But behind the seemingly perfect result of "winning", Gu Ailing is thinking far from being limited to gold medals or points — these are the rewards of her skiing process, but they are by no means her ultimate goal.
For example, she pays attention to the athletic performance of athletes of different genders, and although male and female players compete in competitions, she still wants to know why many of the gaps naturally exist. "A lot of times, the same fall out, the girl will be injured, but the boy will not. I don't know why, but a lot of boys just get out at the last second. It's not like the kind of training that lifts the weight in the gym, it's all about feeling, and of course girls can practice, but it's not easy. ”
For example, she will inevitably encounter failure, but the failure does not mean that the previous efforts are nullified, when she is in a low period, she likes to calm down and calm down in solitude. "After a game mistake, I like to be alone, write a diary at home or cry, and analyze everything in my head."
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If you know Gu Ailing from various reports and interviews, most viewers or fans may think that she is a natural and expressive person, always positive, always energetic. But in Gu Ailing's own cognition, these abilities are like skiing, learned from the day after tomorrow, not the "factory settings" that come with it. "I've said in interviews before that I'm an introvert, and people don't believe me and think I'm particularly lively in front of the camera, and that's because I've been learning for a long time since I was a kid how to become a more extroverted person."
When Gu Ailing began to show these "imperfections" that were different from those imagined by others, in fact, the softness of an 18-year-old girl really unfolded. Under the fame, it may be easy for people to "mythologize" her, but Gu Ailing herself is not immersed in the seemingly glamorous and pompous bubble, she is willing to try to show her strong side, and she does not mind some low state being seen. It is precisely because of these lows that her dreams related to skiing and the Winter Olympics have been particularly shining.
At present, Gu Ailing is gradually completing the transformation from the heavy identity of the Olympic champion.
Her direction is not to get more honors in the next competition, but to return to the original life of an 18-year-old girl and enjoy everything she is interested in at her age.
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Even after the game, she still insisted on fitness, because for her, fitness is not for the game, which is one thing she likes. "I don't exercise for the Olympics, I'm doing it every day." She especially enjoys running, and although it is unlikely to run the streets of Beijing as casually as she once did, she goes to the gym every day, and no matter how busy she is, she will not delay this arrangement. "I'll run at least one marathon in my life, though I don't know when that will be."
Sometimes when she trains on the treadmill, she also remembers the scene when she was a child during the summer vacation, and her mother took her to run in Beijing: "My mother rode me to run, 10 kilometers." "None of this has anything to do with her status as a skier, but in her sense, there is no difference between higher and lower." Skiing makes my life more meaningful, and I have to live longer than after the race. ”
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In the gap period after the tense competition, finding these small meanings scattered in ordinary life has become Gu Ailing's current small goal. "I did it both when I got into Stanford and won the Winter Olympics, and now it's like a corner of my life, having to find some new goals." It's hard for her to be like a normal girl, who can occasionally "buy, buy, buy" to get instant and real happiness, because "two gold medals and a silver medal are already rewards, and it's good that I have this opportunity to enjoy the process, and nothing can be bought that can make me feel better." Before there's nothing exciting enough to do with big new goals in front of her, she hopes to get help from small things that don't necessarily have a lot of purpose, but they make me happy, like writing a book, fashioning, or acting." ”
In this rare period of rest, Gu Ailing chose to slow down his rhythm. Even though there were plenty of magazine and advertising jobs, and countless people were waiting to interview her, she didn't limit herself to a full schedule. She didn't know which city she was going to have a new job in the next day, and she didn't want to limit any new possibilities because of her inherent cognition, so she simply let go of her mentality and accepted various opportunities and changes. Including at a press conference after the Winter Olympics, she revealed that she might write a book or make a movie based on the contents of her diary, and she only wanted to list her unlimited potential, but did not set any one goal too dead. Having experienced the Winter Olympics, she has learned to allow herself to enjoy the process of everything that happens, rather than just stereotypically waiting for a result.
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"I don't try to be a perfect person,
I would like to encourage everyone to work together,
Do your best. ”
Since the initial goal of participating in the Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing has had a wish: to bring more people to participate in ice and snow projects. Now that her wish has come true, she often sees people on social networks saying that she has to go skiing because she watched Gu Ailing's game. Or someone who was infected by her athleticism and started running, these also touched her, "I never thought that when I was 18 years old, it would affect the life of anyone else, let alone have so many friends supporting me." 」 But in addition to support, she also hopes that everyone will influence each other just because of love, and will not look at her indiscriminately. After all, she is just a young person who has just completed a dream and is still waiting for the next dream to start.
After the championship, Gu Ailing is also curious about what new chapter will appear in his next life.
Producer/MIX WEI
Photography / Liu Song
Editor & Styling/AUSTIN FENG
Text Editor/Chen Baiyan CHICO CHAN
Written by/Fan Zhang
Makeup/Chun Nan
Hairstyle/Zhang Fan BON
Producer/Oolong OOLONG
Art Direction/Cathy Lo
Art Assistant/Zhang Tongtong, Qian Jingchen
Art Assistant/Li Jiayu
Nail art/particles
Styling Assistance /LUCIA &XIXI&STAN
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Editor/Ali
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TC/Wu Yang
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Editor Assistant/VICKY