In 1984, the Chinese table tennis team had a calm year.
Although it experienced the fluctuations of achievements in the 1970s, after the arrival of the 80s, the national table tennis under the leadership of Li Furong and Zhang Xielin stepped out of the trough step by step. At the 1981 World Table Tennis Championships in Novi Sad, the Chinese team won 7 championships for the first time, shocking the table tennis world. At the 1983 World Table Tennis Championships in Tokyo, the national table tennis team also won 6 gold medals, only the men's doubles lost, and the trophy was taken by the former Yugoslav duo Of Shulbek/Kalinic.
Oh yes, it was also at this World Table Tennis Championships that a 17-year-old Swedish teenager and Cai Zhenhua, who will soon retire, played a difficult score, and even exploded a 29-31 score in a single game, but finally lost.
At that time, people would not know the historical achievements of the rising star in the future, just like the 5-year-old child who appeared in the eyes of Shen Yimin, a grassroots coach in Shanghai, not long ago.
In February 1984, Shen Yimin walked out of the Zhabei District Junior Sports School and came to the Zhijiang West Road Kindergarten across the street, and began his own material selection work like countless table tennis coaches from all over China.
Yes, the reason why China's table tennis industry can flourish for a long time is because it has a very perfect national system guarantee, and from a young age, there will be professionals who will go deep into the grassroots to find good seedlings, and then screen them to the national team layer by layer.
When most countries in the world are "free-range" table tennis players, China's table tennis has formed a monolith, not to mention that we still have hundreds of millions of people, which is strong and which is weak, at a glance.
However, it is precisely because the talent reserve is too full, so not every talented child will be able to enter the professional team, and in shen Yimin's visit thirty-eight years ago, he noticed a very tall student, which is rare in the south.
If you look at the situation in the Chinese table tennis world at that time, such a child is actually not easy to cultivate, because the national table tennis in 1984 is still a team with a straight beat as the core, paying attention to flexibility and changeability, and the requirements for the body are not high, but sometimes it is hoped to be slightly lower, because the taller the athlete, the more likely it is to appear cumbersome, it is difficult to "fast" up on the field.
One of the most talked about things that Chinese fans talked about at that time was that the dexterous Chinese players beat the tall and arm-length Europeans around the near stage, which proved a principle that is still in use today, that is:
Skill is stronger than brute force.
Probably for this reason, the coach who came to visit before did not look at the tall child, but Shen Yimin was deeply impressed by him, on the one hand, his height was indeed outstanding, on the other hand, because he himself wanted to do something challenging.
At that time, although China's straight-up play method still dominates the world, but with hard work and equipment innovation, the European players have begun to make rapid progress in arc ball technology, so Shen Yimin concluded:
In the future, Chinese table tennis will definitely be threatened by Europeans again, so when selecting materials, we must also pay attention to tall and good seedlings to prepare for the possible strong confrontation in the future.
But unfortunately, there were still too few table tennis people with this vision at that time, so even if the anti-glue players of national table tennis such as Xi Ending, Guo Yuehua and others in those years had achieved certain results, but with the re-emergence of Jiang Jialiang, Chen Longcan and other positive rubber athletes, many people formed a misunderstanding, that is:
The direct shooting and fast attack of national table tennis is still the most advanced in the world, which is so now and will not be an exception in the future.
Soon everyone will pay for their arrogance, and it is no one else who takes the lead in beating the Chinese team down, it is the Swedish boy who fought with Cai Zhenhua in the dark, which we will talk about in detail later, let us first pull our eyes back to Shen Yimin's side.
Through understanding, Shen Yimin knew the name of the child in front of him.
Years later, the world table tennis community also knew those three words - Wang Liqin.
In fact, Wang Liqin may have been surnamed Li because his father's surname was Li, but out of love for his wife, he eventually let his son take his mother's surname, so he was not familiar with the name of "Li Liqin" in the end.
What is interesting is that many years later, another important "distinguished guest" in Wang Liqin's life, who was regarded by him as a father-like figure, was actually surnamed Li, and many people could not help but sigh: Is this a providence in the underworld?
In order to prove his vision, Coach Shen Yimin made many inspections of Wang Liqin and found that this child has a "double-edged sword" temperament:
On the one hand, Wang Liqin is very introverted, in kindergarten like to play alone, this personality is actually not very good for sports athletes, the so-called "Wen Wu first, Wu Wu second", competition is to fight on the field "you die and I live", extroverted players are often more able to have a super level of play, and introverted athletes may not have the strength to make it, and have not yet returned to the gods to lose the game.
But on the other hand, Wang Liqin is also an extremely serious child, meticulous in everything he does, and very focused. 5 years old should be the most active age, but Shen Yimin saw Wang Liqin playing tennis for 20 minutes alone in kindergarten, which is a very necessary quality for professional athletes who have to train day after day, year after year.
In the end, Shen Yimin made his own decision: to bring Wang Liqin into the professional team.
However, shen Yimin soon received some incomprehensible views, and some peers did not recognize his vision, after all, this is a table tennis player, not basketball or volleyball, and Wang Liqin's figure does seem a little too tall.
I have to say that the vision of these coaches at that time was also very accurate - although Wang Liqin was only 5 and a half years old at that time, everyone was a figure who worked in the sports circle, and they could see the future growth trajectory of the children at a glance. Until today, thirty-eight years later, there are very few people in the table tennis world who can surpass Wang Liqin in height.
But Shen Yimin insisted on his choice and then began to cultivate Wang Liqin.
It is very interesting that Wang Liqin also chose the straight-shooting method at the beginning, which is probably also Shen Yimin's "historical limitation", because the national table tennis at that time was basically a straight-shooting athlete, and most of the horizontal shooting players could only act as sparring partners, lacking a standardized training system, so Shen Yimin's original idea was to build Wang Liqin into a new type of direct shooting athlete who could not only exert power in the near stage, but also use his long hands and feet to deal with Europeans.
More than twenty years later, there was indeed a tall left-handed national table tennis straight-up athlete who did this, and he also grew up in Shanghai. But now, Wang Liqin told Shen Yimin with practical actions that this method would not work in that year.
Why?
Because objective historical conditions do not allow it, because Wang Liqin's personal circumstances do not allow it.
The world table tennis in the 80s is still playing 38mm small ball, so the straight shot player is destined to win quickly, and if you want to be fast, you must stand on the near stage and constantly attack, try to defend as little as possible, less stalemate, but Shen Yimin originally chose Wang Liqin is not to hope that he can go and hold on with European athletes? Otherwise, why look for such a tall child?
And Wang Liqin himself has a very serious problem, that is, "chicken breast" - playing table tennis, especially the straight beat, must lower his center of gravity, but Wang Liqin is a posture of holding his head high in any case, which makes it more difficult for him to lower his center of gravity when he is originally tall.
In the face of this situation, Shen Yimin's heart is also full of mixed feelings, and if he changes the words of others, he may ask himself in his heart: Is it possible that this time he has lost his eyes? But Shen Yimin was still full of confidence in Wang Liqin, so he made another life-changing decision for Wang Liqin.
That's to make him switch to the horizontal shot.
In fact, at that time, Wang Liqin had become the first in the sports school team, but Shen Yimin knew that his current situation was impossible to reach the peak level of table tennis, so there was an in-depth exchange between the two masters and apprentices, and Shen Yimin asked openly:
"You are now the first in the team, do you want to be the first in Shanghai, the first in the country, and the first in the world?"
The introverted Wang Liqin said bluntly: "I want to become the first in Shanghai and the first in the country, but it seems a little difficult to be the first in the world." ”
Shen Yimin then said, "Then from tomorrow you will start practicing horizontal boards."
Wang Liqin was not happy when he heard it: "I can't play the horizontal board, so I can't get the first in the team!" ”
Years later, we all know that Shen Yimin's decision was correct: in just three months, Wang Liqin adapted to the horizontal beating method, and eventually became the number one person in the world of table tennis.
Back to that topic: Why is China's table tennis so powerful? A grassroots table tennis coach can grasp the trend of the times and the individual talent of the athletes so accurately, which is comparable to other countries?
Therefore, in the Chinese table tennis world, most of the decisions made by coaches for athletes are unquestionable.
But because of this, many people later raised various questions after Wang Liqin lost a game in Greece at the age of 26, which led to a huge mystery in the Chinese table tennis scene in the 21st century - but this matter is still far from the current chapter of this series, and it is not listed here.
Just when Wang Liqin's table tennis career began to gradually move on the right track, more than a thousand kilometers away from Shanghai, in northeast China, two younger children will also usher in a turning point in their lives, one of whom is surnamed Ma, born in Liaoning, but later rooted in Guangdong; and the other with Wang Liqin is a family, born in Jilin, but later did not stay in the northeast.
Although their hometown is close, the two children do not seem to have intersected much in childhood. And many years later, they probably would not have imagined that they would stage the most tragic Grand Slam battle in the history of table tennis with the brother in Shanghai, but the result was "three defeats and injuries", and no one left regrets.
We'll talk about that later.
"National Table Tennis Two Kings and One Horse" serial is in progress, welcome interested friends to continue to pay attention to the full word, we will see you in the next chapter!