Gymnastics champion Cheng Fei
Cheng Fei is a famous Chinese gymnast. She has won 9 world championships, and at the 2005 World Championships in Melbourne, she won the first women's vaulting gold medal in the history of Chinese gymnastics, and her movement was named "Cheng Fei Jump", since then, Cheng Fei has become a sister of the Chinese women's gymnastics team. At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, she led the team to win the team gold medal. However, in 2012, Cheng Fei was forced to retire from the competition on the eve of the London Olympic Games due to a rupture of the Achilles tendon, and then retired. After that, Cheng Fei disappeared from people's sight. So, after retiring, where is the generation of famous players who have won the most world championships in the history of Chinese women's gymnastics, and what is life like? At the age of 27, is she happy to hold hands with the young man?
Recently, after many efforts, the reporter of this magazine exclusively interviewed Cheng Fei.
Here's her self-statement —
From the day I retired from the army, finding a boyfriend and living a normal girl's easy life under the moon became my father's greatest wish. But I was always hesitant and didn't know how to choose the rest of my life.
I was born in 1988 in Huangshi City, Hubei Province, my father Cheng Ligao was a dispatcher in the workshop of Dongfeng Motor Factory, and my mother Xu Chunxiang was an ordinary worker in Huangshi Tire Factory. I became a gymnast, and the enlightenment teacher was my father who had practiced martial arts, and from then on, he was harsh and reprimanded all the way. On the road to becoming a talent, my relationship with my father has always been the relationship between a strict master and a lazy apprentice. Later, I frequently won the championship, and the aura of honor covered up my lack of communication with my father. It wasn't until June 2012, on the eve of the London Olympics, that I suddenly broke my Achilles tendon during a training session. The injuries were severe and the recovery period was conservatively estimated to be at least 3-6 months, which meant that I said goodbye to the London Olympics early. I felt that I was not abandoned by others, but by heaven. People who have not engaged in competitive sports will not understand the confusion and depression, and during that time, I could not even listen to songs such as "Me and You", deliberately avoiding many memories of the past on the field.
During that time, my dad called me every day. I thought he was going to blame me for being careless, for dropping the chain at a critical time, as he had done before. However, he did not. He actually said gently and unprecedentedly: "Otherwise, take a break, and you should also live the life of a normal girl." "Such heart-warming words, and dad's past words are too big, so that I am still a little uncomfortable for a while."
After recovering from the Achilles tendon, I officially retired from work and became an assistant coach for the national team until may 2013, when the National Games ended. At that time, I also graduated from Wuhan University of Physical Education with a master's degree in physical education, and entered my alma mater to become a young teacher. The school assigned me a one-bedroom and one-hall dormitory.
Although the school took care of me as much as possible, but the pain of the London Olympic Games, so that I will have waist pain whenever it rains on a cloudy day, I will not be able to sit for a long time, and because I am prone to fat physique, injuries make me dare not do intense exercise at all, the weight has increased a lot in a short period of time from 90 pounds, and even the good friends who have not seen me for many days have collectively crusaded against me, and I began to be depressed.
Just when I was at a loss, my dad was hired as a gymnastics coach for martial arts and came to Wuhan. The school arranged for us to live together, and I had always been used to living in groups, and this was the first time I had lived under the same roof with my dad for a long time. Dad is usually at home, he always annoys his mother, never admits mistakes, and is particularly hard-mouthed and loves to make excuses. My mom retired home around 2000 to take care of my grandmother and take care of the whole family. Mom tried her best, but Dad always Mom, and Mom often called me complaining, saying that she was in front of Dad, like the little nanny of the landlord's house.
Based on dad's "bad deeds", the days we lived together can be imagined. Every day, the two of us quarreled happily because of trivial matters, and when we got angry, I ignored him, but he continued to chase me and talk to me incomprehensibly. What's even more infuriating is that he coughs non-stop every day, but still smokes and drinks uncontrollably. For his health, I warned him to quit smoking immediately and not to let the children in the gym smell smoke. He had promised to be good on the surface, but in fact he had been secretly sucking, and it was getting more and more fierce. Annoyed by my nagging, he also shouted: "Why are you so annoying, I am your father, you have to take care of everything?" I showed no sign of weakness: "You don't know there's a kind of violence, just call it 'Am I your father!'" If you are not right, you must change it, and I will supervise you. ”
Dad just doesn't change, and he lives in his own world "willfully". He often has back pain and leg pain, that is, he refuses to go to the physical examination arranged by the unit, and he also has a word: "If you don't check it, it's okay, check a bunch of things, I won't go!" He can also not sleep on the computer for three days and three nights, just to chase a "anti-Japanese drama" with incomparable dog blood, which is particularly fascinating. I couldn't stand it, so I walked over and turned off the computer: "The TV series are all nonsense, 'Hand tearing devils, you can also watch it.'" He didn't speak either, smiling and pretending to give in, and when I got back to the room, he quietly turned on the computer again, plugged in the headphones and continued to watch with relish... The two of us went out together, and no matter how important it was, he would sneak out in between for a while, and needless to say, it must have been smoking somewhere. A few times, I chased it out: "You gave me a cigarette!" At that point, he took two sips of hard work, and then threw the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. Whenever that happens, the anger in my heart rises infinitely. For a long time, I regarded him as the negative model of the relationship standard, and once someone asked me, "What kind of boyfriend do you want to find?" Without thinking, I blurted out: "As long as it's not like him, it's OK." ”
One day in November 2013, after another conflict with my father, we finally calmed down and had a long talk, he said: "You are no longer the Olympic champion, I came to Wuhan to work, so that I can accompany you more and let you adapt to the current school life." I also changed the bad things, and you mixed up a look for me to see. I was stunned, and tears came out of my eyes. Dad's words struck me hard: what I need now is to adapt to my new role and become a qualified gymnastics teacher who is popular with students. Since then, I have held my breath and started to actively accept life around me. I started swimming and jogging every day, and finally I lost my weight a little bit.
Chen Fei and her parents
Although I have a master's degree, but because I have not undergone systematic school education, nor have I taken the college entrance examination, in the face of the podium, I always have an unspeakable anxiety, very worried that my knowledge reserves are not enough, delaying the future of students. In order to truly become a teacher, I soaked all my spare time in the library and recharged my batteries. Dad saw these changes in my eyes, but he never commented. Surprisingly, he no longer "works" as in the past, smokes less, and spends most of his time every day in addition to class, buying vegetables and cooking, and supplementing my nutrition. Maybe I didn't pay attention to him anymore, maybe I was too busy, and he wasn't so "unpleasant" anymore, and my relationship with my father was much more harmonious.
In addition to playing the role of "teacher", I also tried to give regular lectures in the Hubei Provincial Library and give lectures in various middle schools in Wuhan. In 2014, I went to many places, even to Hong Kong and other places in the United States, to do exchanges and research on basic gymnastics education, and I also saw that the loss of Chinese gymnastics talents far exceeded my imagination. Under the active struggle and application of my colleagues and me, the International Gymnastics College has also officially settled in Wuhan Institute of Physical Education, which has opened majors in different directions such as aerobics and cheerleading, from daily teaching, to selecting students, to professional training, and even the retirement employment of students. At the same time, I also serve as the "Promotion Ambassador" of the Gymnastics School.
I didn't stop there. Soon, in the form of the entrepreneurial team of Wuhan University students, I started the "Happy Gymnastics" project that benefited the majority of primary and secondary school students in Hubei, recruited a group of children aged 3 to 10 years old in Wuhan, started classes every weekend, taught them basic gymnastics movements, exercised children's sense of coordination and balance, and aimed at allowing gymnastics to penetrate into the daily life of every child, in the hope that more children love gymnastics and make it a part of everyone's life. I hope that this project will be a successful pilot of the new model of "gymnastics club". In this way, after arduous dormancy and hard work, I finally completed the most gorgeous turn of my life. Not only did he lose weight successfully, but he also became a very popular teacher among students. Not only that, but I was also honored to be named the youngest associate professor of Wuhan Institute of Physical Education!
With the gradual smoothness of my career, my life events have become the most worrying content of the people around me. However, because I grew up in the national training team, I had little contact with other boys except male gymnasts, and the strict rules that gymnasts were not allowed to fall in love before retiring also made me lack experience in dealing with boys. My concept of love has always been more ignorant of hindsight, training for a day, our dorm friends often discuss topics such as "which male team member is more handsome" when they talk at night, but I have been dozing off and just want to sleep. Later, I added the title of Olympic champion, which made many boys of the same age feel that I was unattainable and only admired. Once upon a time, a few of my enthusiastic girlfriends also "set up a bureau" to pull me out on an outing, and by the way, I took a boy my age, hoping to match us, but along the way we chatted and talked, and when we separated, we did not talk about love, but became brothers and brothers. In this regard, my girlfriend and the enthusiastic people around me are very helpless, my father probably knows that I will not listen to him, plus I am getting busier and busier, often flying around, and he never nags about this. Still, my relationship with my father was separated by a layer, and even we couldn't tell the faint alienation of the inexplicable.
One day in May 2015, I went to Beijing with my dad to run an errand. When I returned to Wuhan, in the crowded crowd at the railway station, I suddenly found that he was actually carrying four or five packages on his shoulders, and I reached out to help him get one, but he stubbornly avoided: "Shen." I can move. ”
In the bright sun, I found that the white hair on his sideburns was so conspicuous, and his back did not know when it became rickety. Dad, who was old, had even softened his tone of voice when he spoke to me. At that moment, an inexplicable sadness struck my heart, and my eyes were actually moist.
After returning from Beijing, Dad resigned from school and returned to his hometown. I was very surprised and repeatedly asked him why. He shook his head: "What are so many reasons for things in this world?" If you have to find a reason, it is that I want to accompany your mother, so many years, I let her at home too hard. "I was relieved that he finally felt guilty about his mother and didn't stop him.
A month ago, I suddenly received a letter from my father. Opening the thick brown paper envelope, his words became softer:
Hello Fey:
The last time I wrote to you was 20 years ago, after so many years, I often don't know where to start what I want to say to you. When you were a child, I let you practice gymnastics, your training is very strict, at the beginning is to hope that you can have a good body, and then hope that you can make a little achievements do not give up, you left home at the age of six or seven to go to Wuhan for training, I never told you, at that time I was particularly sad with your mother, after all, you are so young, who does not want your daughter to stay by their side with themselves? And at that time, the traffic was particularly underdeveloped, and every time I had to take a boat to see you, I had to bump on the water for more than eight hours, and your mother was at home, not sleeping all night waiting for your news. Now well, the traffic is developed, you are in Wuhan, we are in Huangshi, I hope you can go home to see us more, see your mother. In the past, because you have been out of the game training for a long time, I can't accompany you throughout the growth process like other dads, so I have always felt guilty, and now as long as I have time and opportunity, I hope to be able to accompany you more. Now that you have transformed into a teacher, your mother and I are happy for you, we don't ask you for much glory, we only want you to do everything well. Now that your mom and I are old, we look forward to having a good son-in-law, good for you, and letting you live a happy life... Love your father, Cheng Ligao.
In the sun, I moistened my eyes again. I called my father and asked him how he was so pretentious, lived with me for a few years, did not say a word of good, but came home and wrote such a sensational letter, and told him that if he was really not at ease, he would come to Wuhan with his mother to continue to accompany me! He hesitated for half a day, and suddenly came to say: "I don't want to go again, and I don't want to be managed by you every day." When I was training children at the Wuhan Institute of Physical Education with you, I didn't retire for a long time, I was afraid that you had just returned to Wuhan from the gymnastics team and wouldn't adapt, wouldn't deal with others, and wanted to accompany you more, it was better than you working here alone... Now that you're a qualified teacher, I'm not going to be a light bulb..."
I was stunned and burst into tears. For so many years, my father, who has many "vices", originally had such a affectionate and affectionate side. I realized that he had always been the patron saint by my side, and I remembered that I had just returned to school, and my father quickly mingled with the unsociable me and the teachers and students in the college, and specifically told the teachers to take care of me when I first arrived. He is a teacher with a lot of student popularity, many students have added his WeChat, and returned to see him many years after graduation. The warmth he never said before, the anxiety he often hung on his lips, the harsh words, every bit of it was because of me. Maybe it wasn't because he was old that he wouldn't even say those words. I didn't say these pretentious things to him like Dad did. But every half a month, I would drive back to Yellowstone to see him. Every time he came home, he still didn't change, hiding on the couch playing with tablets and watching TV, but he would now hide his cigarette case and lighter in advance and pretend that he had quit smoking. I actually looked at it in my eyes, but I also learned to pretend to be stupid, and whatever he said, I laughed and listened.
Life is still the same, just read my father's letter, 27 years old I officially put marriage on the agenda. I believe in fate, and my life itself is a wonderful journey. I never felt like a "leftover girl" and I wished my other half could have some minor problems like Dad, but I had to be responsible. I wonder if my dad knows that my criteria for choosing a mate are the same as his, will he be dizzy? Will he say: Don't look for me like this! Ha ha! Regarding material conditions, I do not have specific requirements, I believe that a boy with experience and thinking, his economic conditions will not be too bad. I believe in Sanmao's view of marriage and love: those who look good, multi-millionaires also marry; If it doesn't look good, the billionaire doesn't marry either. If I meet someone different, as long as there is enough money for eating, it will be enough. And I'm still losing weight, I don't eat much, and I can eat less later.