Table tennis, as the national ball of the mainland, has been sought after by the Chinese people, and among them, countless young players who have emerged one after another are also quite popular.
At the same time, it is precisely because of the abundance of talents in the table tennis industry that champions can be seen everywhere, and the replacement speed of new and old table tennis players is relatively fast compared to other fields.
With the emergence of a new generation such as Fan Zhendong, Chen Meng, sun Yingsha, etc., the former ping-pong veterans are gradually being forgotten by people, although regrettable, but it is an inevitable thing.
In this case, when it comes to Liang Lizhen, almost no one knows, as the world champion of the sixties, she has long faded from people's vision.
No one pays attention to Liang Lizhen in her later years, and naturally no one will know that she has never been married in her life and eventually grew old alone in a nursing home.
From the world champion to the lonely old age, what has Liang Lizhen experienced in her life? Today, I will take you to understand.
01 Hit by mistake and start your career as a player
Liang Lizhen was born in 1945, which was the era when sports swept the country, so after Liang Lizhen entered the primary school, the school principal also opened swimming courses in the school to catch up with the trend.
For a while, all the children rushed into the pool and had a lot of fun. Liang Lizhen's parents were working class at the time and had a good salary income.
Therefore, Liang Lizhen's parents also signed up for swimming lessons, and after entering the swimming team, Liang Lizhen began training with the physical education teacher.
The young Liang Lizhen is very hardworking, but no matter how hard Liang Lizhen tries, her swimming speed cannot be improved for a long time, and she is at the bottom of the swimming competition list every time.
To this end, the physical education teacher also paid special attention to Liang Lizhen's training, once, after the training, the physical education teacher called Liang Lizhen aside and asked: "Do you know why you swim slower than others every time?" ”
Liang Lizhen thought she was going to be criticized, shook her head in grievance, and then the physical education teacher said: "Because you always make mistakes." ”
"But your reaction is fast, maybe you can try playing table tennis." After communicating with her parents many times, in the end, Liang Lizhen decided to follow the advice of her physical education teacher and try table tennis.
It is precisely because of the words of the physical education teacher that Liang Lizhen has the opportunity to stand on the podium of the world champion in the future.
So, when Liang Lizhen was eight years old, she officially began to contact table tennis. During the period when she had just moved from the swimming team to the table tennis team, Liang Lizhen was very uncomfortable.
Compared with the players of the same period, Liang Lizhen has fallen behind a long way, so Liang Lizhen has to work harder, while catching up with the progress, while strengthening her foundation.
From the most basic beginning of gripping and serving, with Liang Lizhen's continuous training, her ball skills have also improved by leaps and bounds, and there have been obvious changes.
In order to further train Liang Lizhen, coach Wang Zhengyuan let Liang Lizhen practice playing against the wall every day, even if there was no opponent, Liang Lizhen did not have any complaints, and went out of her way to do the training over and over again.
Although Liang Lizhen at this time was only a primary school student, she had a tenacity and perseverance that adults could not match, and she was training day after day.
Until Liang Lizhen was 12 years old, she successfully completed her primary school curriculum, and she could no longer continue to practice in Wang Zhengyuan's team.
Therefore, Wang Zhengyuan recommended Liang Lizhen to the Guangzhou Amateur Sports School Table Tennis Team, so that Liang Lizhen could receive more professional table tennis training in the future.
02 Tough player road
Although under the recommendation of Wang Zhengyuan, Liang Lizhen successfully entered the table tennis team of Guangzhou Amateur Sports School, compared with other players in the team, Liang Lizhen's ball skills could not bear to look at directly.
After a brief test of Liang Lizhen, the coach once again let her practice with the wall, which is undoubtedly extremely boring.
Not to mention that other team members have opponents to accompany, only Liang Lizhen can only be with the wall every day, which is undoubtedly a very hurtful thing.
But Liang Lizhen did not compromise on this, but trained step by step every day, almost without interruption. At the end of 1957, table tennis player Zhuang Jiafu came to Guangzhou to select players.
To this end, all the students also came up with the best state on the selection day, and in the end, Liang Lizhen's classmate Fan Zhengguang was favored.
Immediately, Fan Zhengguang was taken to Beijing by Zhuang Jiafu, which means that it is likely to participate in some international competitions in the future.
Looking at Fan Zhengguang's excited and proud appearance before leaving, Liang Lizhen could not help but feel envious, and secretly vowed that she would definitely go to Beijing for training in the future.
As a result, since then, Liang Lizhen has worked harder and almost devoted all her energy to the practice of table tennis.
By 1958, Liang Lizhen, who had only been in the team for one year, had become a master in the team, and many veterans had become Liang Lizhen's defeated generals.
At this time, the coach of the provincial team of Guangdong Province came to Liang Lizhen's school to select the team members, and on the day of the competition, Liang Lizhen was as stable as ever, playing a stable role and winning the favor of the provincial team coach.
Therefore, Liang Lizhen successfully entered the Guangdong Provincial Training Team and became one of them, and Liang Lizhen was only 13 years old at this time.
Two years later, Liang Lizhen entered the training area of the five provinces in central and southern China, just as the so-called people outside the people, there are days outside the sky, after coming here, Liang Lizhen found her own serious deficiencies.
The training team has more than fifty people, which is specially set up for preparation for the World Table Tennis Championships, and compared with the previous training, the training of the training team is more intense and more rigorous.
Not only that, the training team will hold frequent competitions and rank after the competition, and almost every time, Liang Lizhen will be at the bottom.
This made Liang Lizhen very devastated, and even once had self-doubt, seeing the situation, xu Ruiqin, who was also in the training team at the time, extended a helping hand to Liang Lizhen.
Xu Ruiqin not only often encourages Liang Lizhen, but also continues to accompany Liang Lizhen to practice on the court after each training.
Therefore, in the company of Xu Ruiqin, Liang Lizhen came out of the emotional trough little by little, and the girl who did not accept defeat in the past was online again.
In this way, Liang Lizhen practiced almost all night in succession for two months, and finally the kung fu paid off, and Liang Lizhen's ranking in the competition began to change, no longer the last place forever.
Even if the results at this time are still not so good, but it is enough for Liang Lizhen to gain a lot of courage, with an immediate effect, Liang Lizhen also maintained such training habits.
By the third month, Liang Lizhen had already reached the eighth place in the team, which was a leap forward, which impressed the coach and many teammates.
03 Olympic champion, the scenery is momentary
Liang Lizhen, who can endure so much hardship, is difficult to succeed, and finally in 1960, she was selected into the national training team with excellent results, and Liang Lizhen was only 15 years old at this time.
Entering the national team means that the training is more arduous, but Liang Lizhen is least afraid of hardship, and the strength of other players who can enter the national team should not be underestimated.
This pain was not worth mentioning to them, so in such an atmosphere, everyone encouraged each other and survived the day-to-day training.
A year later, the 26th World Table Tennis Championships was held as scheduled, and Liang Lizhen and Han Yuzhen participated in the competition as partners and achieved a good result of runner-up.
It was also from this time that Liang Lizhen began to enter the public's vision, but then in the World Table Tennis Championships held in 1963, the mainland women's table tennis did not qualify for the final, which surprised the world.
The defeat of the World Table Tennis Championships was a huge blow to women's table tennis, making women's table tennis fall into a downturn, in order to change this situation, the national team hired the table tennis national Rong Guotuan as the new coach of women's table tennis.
Rong Guotuan has always been Liang Lizhen's idol, after learning this news, Liang Lizhen was particularly excited, and the facts also proved that the arrival of Rong Guotuan has brought new vitality to women's table tennis.
This enabled women's table tennis to regain its strength and actively participate in the next preparation training. Under the training day after day, two years of time passed in a flash, and soon, the 28th World Table Tennis Championships came to an end.
After two years of continuous adjustment, the mainland women's table tennis changed its previous downturn, stood in front of the world with a more powerful appearance, and won the women's table tennis world team championship in one fell swoop.
In addition, Liang Lizhen and her teammates also won the third place in the women's doubles and mixed doubles respectively, when Liang Lizhen, who stood on the world championship podium, was just twenty years old.
From a little girl who knows nothing about table tennis to winning the world championship, Liang Lizhen has paid too much along the way, according to the convention, and this is only the beginning of the golden age of champion Liang Lizhen.
But unexpectedly, the brilliant period of Liang Lizhen that we were looking forward to did not arrive as promised, perhaps because she was not born at the right time, or perhaps it was caused by fate.
Under the influence of the general environment, Liang Lizhen missed the opportunity to continue to develop, and as she grew older, Liang Lizhen began to feel a little powerless for the competition.
Therefore, in order to give her brothers and sisters more opportunities, Liang Lizhen chose to retire in 1973, which is not an easy decision for every athlete.
Retiring also means leaving the position that you have struggled for many years, and it also means giving up the opportunity to fight again to win honors, which is very cruel.
Even though she chose to retire, Liang Lizhen was not willing to leave the table tennis industry she loved, so Liang Lizhen went behind the scenes.
In 1980, he served as the deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Sports Committee, focusing more on the promotion and popularization of table tennis.
During Liang Lizhen's reign, she did not slacken off like the athletes and made great contributions to table tennis.
04 The love of my life, quietly passed away
In 1985, Liang Lizhen, who was already forty years old, paid $50 at her own expense to sign up for the "World Veteran Games" held in Canada.
In this competition, Liang Lizhen won the women's singles championship, allowing people to witness that her sword is not old. In 2005, Liang Lizhen organized a traveling exhibition with the theme of "50 Years of Table Tennis in China".
Let people across the country once again have a deeper impression and understanding of table tennis, in the same year, The sixty-year-old Liang Lizhen also officially bid farewell to the workplace and retired from the front line.
Because she has dedicated her life to the cause of table tennis that she loves, Liang Lizhen has never been married, and she has no sons and daughters under her knees.
Hindered by the high-intensity training in the past, Liang Lizhen fell a lot of injuries in her later years, in order not to add trouble to the country and the organization, Liang Lizhen took the initiative to live in a nursing home after retirement.
Here, Liang Lizhen led a group of elderly people to engage in an elderly table tennis game for the purpose of strengthening their health, and after several games, the atmosphere of the nursing home was also very active.
In addition, Liang Lizhen also added a hobby of photography, she bought herself a camera to record the beauty of life.
Although Liang Lizhen was childless and childless in her life, Liang Lizhen still lived a very full life in her later years, filling her life with her own interests and hobbies.
Until January 27, 2017, on the traditional Chinese Chinese New Year's Eve night, when the family was reunited and happy, Liang Lizhen passed away quietly.
When Liang Lizhen's friend pushed open her door, Liang Lizhen, who fell to the ground, had no breath, and a generation of national table tennis champions quietly passed away at the age of 72.
From practicing at the age of 8, winning the world championship at the age of 20, and retiring at the age of 60, all the time in Liang Lizhen's life is closely related to table tennis.
She has dedicated her life to the beloved table tennis industry, and what kind of feeling it is, I think it is difficult for us as others to understand.
Although Liang Lizhen has been gone for many years, her contribution to the cause of table tennis over the years should be worth remembering forever.
Nowadays, the reason why table tennis can have such bright development prospects in the mainland and become a national ball is closely related to countless Liang Lizhen in the table tennis industry.
If it were not for the promotion and efforts of these older generations, perhaps the table tennis project on the mainland would be as unremarkable as in other countries.
Just as the so-called predecessors planted trees, posterity is cool, born in the prosperous world, located in any post, we should be grateful to the predecessors, drink water thinking of the source, drink water do not forget to dig wells!
At the same time, while doing our best, we should also look at the long term and strive to leave some usable things for our descendants and make some contributions!
Resources
Western Civilization Broadcast "World Women's Table Tennis Champion Liang Lizhen: Unmarried all her life, living alone in a nursing home in her later years, Chinese New Year's Eve lonely death"
People's Daily "Guangzhou's first table tennis world champion Liang Lizhen died of illness at the age of 72"