Long jump champion Wang Jiannan: 8.36m Jedi strikes back

Long jumper Wang Jiannan talked about it

A childhood dream was to be a hero

When I was a kid, I thought I would become a firefighter if I didn't become an athlete

Now, step by step, he has come out of the trough of setbacks and returned to the top

Another kind of heroism seems to have been elucidated

Wang Jianan dreamed of the same scene three times - at the World Championships, the men's long jump gold medal was held in front of him. Last year, this year, he dreamed, every time he woke up, he told himself, "be realistic", he always worried that such a dream may not be a good dream, after all, last year's Tokyo Olympics, he was too eager for medals and even gold medals and played abnormally, even the final did not go in. Because of this, the name Wang Jianan is still unfamiliar to many people until July 17, 2022.

On the morning of July 17, Beijing time, in the men's long jump final of the 2022 Athletics World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, wang Jiannan completed the "Jedi Counterattack" with the last jump of 8.36 meters, winning the first gold medal of the Eugene World Championships for the Chinese athletics team, which was also the first time that a Chinese male athlete won the gold medal in the long jump of the World Championships, and the first men's athletics world championship in the history of Chinese athletics.

When the gold medal in the dream really hung on his chest, Wang Jianan felt that his generation of athletes was lucky, from a certain point of view, this is the result of the accumulation of Chinese athletics that has been exploring in the scientific concept for many years and implementing the "please come in, go out" strategy, and now his achievements are also paving the way for the next generation. "This is a gold medal that will build confidence in the long jump of the future and young athletes." Wang Jianan told China News Weekly, "Children in the future will face training and competition with a more optimistic and positive attitude." ”

With the emergence of Liu Xiang, Su Bingtian and Wang Jiannan, Asians have increasingly entered the ranks of the world's top track and field athletes, and China's athletics are also entering a new era.

"Even if you jump on your head, you can fight a medal."

Perhaps to motivate the athletes, on the day of the long jump final, three medals of gold, silver and bronze were hung on the edge of the starting line, attracting this group of young people who were fighting for it in the eugene summer sun. "I've watched it several times." Wang Jianan recalled, "But I told myself: don't look, don't look... Don't look! ”

Until the last jump, Wang Jianan's 8.03 meter performance was only ranked fifth. On the big screen showing the results, the third place was 8 meters 15, "not particularly high, I think I should be able to go and rush, even if I jump on my head, I can also fight a medal." Wang Jiannan's confidence is not unfounded, his best result is 8 meters 47, as far back as 2016 when he first competed in the Rio Olympics, he jumped 8 meters 24 in the first jump of the qualification tournament.

Before coming to Eugene, Wang Jiannan no longer considered the gold medal, he felt that this time the mentality was particularly good, the defeat in Tokyo made him completely let go of all the baggage, when checking in, he also observed everyone's state, and silently booked the top three for this final in his heart: the Greek Olympic champion was the first place, and the second was the Swedish boy...

The relaxed mentality helped him, and the last jump fully played out the technical level, and at the moment of jumping, he vaguely felt that the jump "had". In the days that followed, this counterattack as a championship jump was still found by the audience to watch repeatedly, which has become a glorious stroke in the history of Chinese athletics.

Wang Jianan does not deny that this is also the highlight of his life, but these days have been relatively calm, only brush Weibo to see netizens send the game video Aite himself, will be as the audience to watch it again in its entirety. At the end of the game, every time he looked back at the video of the last jump, he was working with coach Randy to review and analyze the flaws in the action - the whole jump was still good, and it had played the level he and the coach wanted in training, but there was still room for improvement in the technique in the air and the moment of landing. For example, when landing, Wang Jiannan slightly lay back a little and lost some of his achievements, which will be the focus of his slow polishing in training in the coming period.

Before the Eugene World Championships, Wang Jiannan shared a calendar on the mobile phone app on social media: "It has been 3078 days since I came to the national team, 2058 days have passed since the 2016 Olympic long jump final, the first meniscus surgery has passed 1928 days, and the second meniscus surgery has passed 1565 days..." He recorded every inflection point in his sports career. One national team worker commented under his calendar: "Athletes are definitely the best commentary for long-termism. "This year is exactly ten years since Wang Jiannan switched from decathlon to long jump.

Born in August 1996 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, Wang Jianan has been active since he was a child, and compared with his peers, he "runs particularly fast and jumps very far." In 2005, Wang Jianan, who was still a primary school student, participated in the Shenhe District Games, and he remembered that the project he participated in was the 100-meter sprint, with average results, but he was caught by Yang Keqiang, coach of Shenyang Sports School. Later, Yang Keqiang recalled that he saw Wang Jianan walking on the playground at that time, although not very tall, but his legs were long, walking "upside down", there was an athlete's strength, and he felt like a good seedling.

Entering the sports school, Wang Jiannan was interested in any project, and did not find a breakthrough in a single event, so he practiced the decathlon: 100 meters, 400 meters, 1500 meters, 110 meters hurdles, long jump, high jump, pole vault, shot put, discus, javelin, ten events are practiced. This is exactly the model that many high-level athletics powers often choose when cultivating young talents - after laying the foundation for all-round training, and then determining the development direction according to the athletes' own conditions.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the National Athletics Management Center has proposed that "economic input, individual education level, scientific and technological intervention and management methods are the prerequisites for achieving results." "Learning from a strong country in athletics is an important part of scientific training and management. Wang Jianan told China News Weekly that his experience in decathlon training has laid a solid foundation for his physical fitness and understanding of sports.

Due to his excellent physical condition and athletic talent, in 2010, Wang Jianan was introduced to the Xuzhou Athletics Team, and then selected for the Jiangsu Provincial Sports Team. In February 2012, Wang Jiannan represented Jiangsu Province in the national indoor men's decathlon competition, and at the age of 16, he scored 7,063 points in the decathlon, which was the second best result among the world's young athletes in 2012. In this all-around competition, his long jump score reached 7.80 meters, which is already the level of national athletes. His coach in the provincial team, Zhao Lei, said to him, "Don't practice the all-around, practice the long jump." ”

It turned out to be the right choice. A few months later, at the National Athletics Championships in September 2012, Wang Jiannan, who had just passed his 16th birthday, won the long jump championship with a time of 8 meters 04, the first time in his career that he broke through the 8 meters mark. After that, he completely focused on the long jump and began to move towards the gold medal 10 years later.

"Get out, please come in"

Since Liu Yuhuang broke the 8-meter mark in the early 1980s, Chinese men's long jump has been seeking a breakthrough, but most athletes have achieved their best results in domestic or Asian competitions. In order to break through the bottleneck and replace the previous hard training with scientific training, the Chinese Athletics Management Center began to learn from the international advanced experience, and proposed "to scientific training to achieve results" before the Beijing Olympic Games, and after the Beijing Olympic Games, it opened the "going out, please come in" strategy, through the hiring of high-level foreign teachers, the establishment of foreign training bases and other cooperation methods, seeking to promote Chinese athletes to quickly move closer to the world under the advanced training concept.

It was thanks to this strategy that in 2013 the Chinese track and field team hired Randy Huntington as the foreign coach of the long jump team, the legendary American coach who has coached triple jump legend Willie Banks and long jump world record holder Mike Powell. This year, Wang Jiannan was selected to join the long jump national team formed by Randy and became the first batch of disciples of Randy.

Randy was first known to Chinese because with his help, Su Bingtian burst out of his amazing potential at the age of 26 to 31, and Randy improved his starting, pedaling and power movements, and finally helped "Su Shen" create the Asian record of 9.83 seconds at the Tokyo Olympics at the age of 32.

In Wang Jiannan's place, from running aid, aerial technology to starting and jumping, every technical action of his has also been carefully shaped by Randy, "Between each jump, he will emphasize with me the accuracy of the running and rhythm." Wang Jianan said.

From the day Randy took over Wang Jiannan's long jump team, he conducted a detailed data analysis of each person, combined with height, body length, leg length, and explosive force data under different weight conditions to develop different technical solutions. Then record each person's running speed, jump angle, step length, and pace frequency, and calculate it by his scientific research team to strengthen the weak links. Randy's team includes not only medical scientists, physicalists, nutritionists and researchers, but also biomechanics experts. Randy said in a previous interview: "The low-speed explosive power (partial strength) of Chinese long jumpers is very good, but the high-speed explosiveness (partial speed) is relatively poor, so I emphasize speed more." Accelerate the pace first, and then adapt the technology to the new speed. ”

Unlike some coaches who are used to "knocking" on players, Randy likes to give his players confidence through encouragement. Wang Jianan remembers that since joining the national team, Randy has always praised, saying that he is good and that is good, saying that his ability is no problem. What impressed Wang Jiannan the most was that before the World Championships, because the University of Oregon was Randy's alma mater and the place where Wang Jiannan won the World Youth Athletics Championships 8 years ago, Randy said to Wang Jianan: "This is my home, but also your home, no one can beat you in our home." Randy's words became a reassuring pill for Wang Jiannan when facing powerful opponents in Europe and the United States.

After Randy became the coach of the long jump national team, the Chinese men's long jump team began to exert strength, and Wang Jiannan also emerged on the international stage. At the Asian Championships in July 2013, in the absence of Li Jinzhe, the "first brother" of the Long Jump in China at the time, the 17-year-old Wang Jiannan won the long jump championship with a time of 7.95 meters. On May 21, 2014, in the men's long jump final of the IAAF World Athletics Challenge in Beijing, Wang Jianan jumped 8.09 meters to win the men's long jump championship. In July of the same year, he won the gold medal at the Eugene World Junior Athletics Championships.

At the 2015 Beijing Athletics World Championships, three players from the Chinese men's long jump team, Li Jinzhe, Gao Xinglong and Wang Jianan, appeared in the final at the same time, which only the "Lewis era" American track and field team in the history of the World Championships could do. In the end, Wang Jiannan won the bronze medal, which was also the first world championship long jump medal in the history of Asian athletics. At that time, some insiders predicted that the best era of China's long jump had arrived.

Wang Jiannan, who made history, has since represented the Chinese team in various international competitions, and in the men's long jump final at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Wang Jiannan finished fifth with a score of 8.17 meters. At the 2018 National Athletics Championships and Asian Games Selection Competition, Wang Jianan jumped 8.47 meters, which not only equaled the national record for the men's long jump held by Li Jinzhe, but also Wang Jiannan's personal best, which ranked 3rd in the annual world ranking list that year. In 2020, he finished first in the world with a seasonly best of 8.36 meters.

Until the Tokyo Olympics, Wang Jiannan maintained a solid performance, and everyone was looking forward to his Olympic results. Wang Jianan said: "During that time, if I was asked about the goal of the Tokyo Olympic Games, I would definitely say that I was running for the medal, or even running for the gold medal. ”

After the Tokyo Fold

"In Tokyo, I planted a big heel." After winning the gold medal at the World Championships, Wang Jiannan said this to many media. In the Men's Long Jump Qualification Tournament for the Tokyo Olympics, Wang Jianan jumped as far as 7.81 meters and did not qualify for the final. You know, when he was under 16 years old, he first participated in the domestic competition and compared it to the decathlon, the long jump was 7 meters 80.

According to insiders, the long jump project, the accident is relatively large, the fault tolerance rate is low, such a competition is particularly testing psychological quality, other competitive sports can help athletes get excited and competitive, in this project, may not become a plus.

Before leaving for Tokyo, the desire to win the medal was too strong, but it became a psychological burden for Wang Jiannan. The extraordinary desire to win has affected his training, and looking back now, he feels a little impetuous and too anxious to disagree with Coach Randy in some ways. The failure of the Tokyo Olympics made him completely correct his mentality, and when he returned, he set a rule for himself - no matter what the coach said, he would obey everything he said, even if Randy said "1 + 1 = 3", he had to listen to him. Some people feel that the supplies of the lost venue are obscure, Wang Jiannan does not think so, he feels that even the biggest failures have to be faced, rather than avoiding it, not to mention that these game supplies can always remind him and learn the lessons in Tokyo.

With such a mentality, all the training plans, training directions and technical improvements and adjustments that Randy formulated for Wang Jianan in this year's winter training have been actively cooperated by him.

As a former decathlon, Wang Jianan has excellent speed conditions, but he has previously made too much jump preparation in the connection process of running and jumping, resulting in the loss of the speed of the running level and affecting the distance after the take-off. In response to the problem of speed reduction in the first two steps of Wang Jia's men's board, Randy gradually mastered the last two steps of the board during the winter training through the help of different steps, and then through the whole process of running and jumping exercises, so that his speed ability and the technology of starting and jumping connection can be effectively connected. During the winter training, his tacit cooperation with Randy and the improvement of the details of the running and starting and jumping connections laid the foundation for his successful leap at the World Championships.

At this time, while the Chinese athletics team obtained more advanced concepts and coaching levels from foreign teachers, it was also changing itself at a more basic institutional level. In 2019, the Chinese Athletics Association split the original 3 training departments into 8 to improve the refinement and professional management level of training. And increase the intensity of policy incentives, coaches to implement the annual salary system, to create a pattern of healthy competition between internal and external teachers. Tian Xiaojun, vice chairman of the Chinese Athletics Association, once said in an interview: "It is not that after the foreign teachers came, our athletes have made so much progress. In fact, through the introduction of foreign teachers, it also promotes domestic coaches to move closer to the international high level as soon as possible in terms of training concepts and combined ideas of competition and training, forming a pattern of internal and external competition and various competitions. ”

Whether it is Su Bingtian's "advanced age" breakthrough or Wang Jiannan's counterattack to seize gold, it is the epitome of Chinese athletics constantly approaching the world-class level in exploration. Wang Jianan is not yet 26 years old, when people can't help but look at the Paris Olympic Games two years later, he confessed to China News Weekly that his experience and lessons are that once the goal is locked in the ranking and results of the event, it will not play a promoting role in preparation and training. Besides, there is another big thing to worry about at the moment, and in more than a month, his child will be born.

As for those goals that go further into the future, he chose not to mention them or want to. However, Wang Jianan talked about a childhood dream - to be a hero, so he liked to watch Jackie Chan's movies, and when he was a child, he thought about becoming a firefighter if he was not an athlete, because he could help people and save people. Now, step by step, he has come back to the top of the trough of frustration, and seems to have explained another kind of heroism.

Reporter: Li Jing

Source: China News Weekly