Among the coaches of national table tennis, Li Xiaodong is a very special existence, he is the first national team coach who is not from a "national player", and the first national team coach to leave class due to conflicts with players.
In addition, Li Xiaodong also let his daughter naturalize Austria to become a naturalized player, which once caused controversy in China.
In fact, Wang Nan has always been grateful to him
In 2005, Wang Nan was interviewed by "Ping Pong World" magazine. In the interview, when talking about those coaches who have coached themselves, Wang Nan expressed his gratitude to former female table tennis coach Li Xiaodong.
When Wang Nan took the initiative to mention Li Xiaodong, the reporter was actually quite surprised. Because the contradiction between Wang Nan and Li Xiaodong was not a secret at that time. Therefore, when interviewing Wang Nan, reporters will avoid the topic of Li Xiaodong.
Wang Nan, who has always been straightforward, did not avoid his contradiction with Li Xiaodong, but expressed gratitude to him.
In the Busan Asian Games, because he lost two points, the women's team lost the gold medal, and Wang Nan has always felt guilty about this.
From Wang Nan's response remarks, it can be seen that Wang Nan does not have any resentment towards Li Xiaodong, and Li Xiaodong still treats Wang Nan as a disciple.
Reading this, many people may ask, since the two still have a master-apprentice relationship, why do the two have differences and even part ways? To make this clear, we must start with Li Xiaodong's life experience.
The child who came out of the scholarly door
Although he dedicated his life to table tennis, when he was young, Li Xiaodong was a child who loved literature and art very much. He attended a private kindergarten run by Shao Lizi, and his paintings were exhibited in Poland when he was 6 years old. Before the age of 10, he was already familiar with the four famous books.
If we follow this rhythm, there will be more scholars or artists named Li Xiaodong in society. In 1961, after watching the World Table Tennis Championships, Li Xiaodong was completely fascinated by this small ball called table tennis.
Looking at the national players working hard at the World Table Tennis Championships, watching the moment when the red star and red flag were raised, Li Xiaodong, who was only 9 years old at the time, was surging in his heart and had an impulse to win glory for the country.
Since then, in addition to studying, practicing table tennis has become something he has to do every day. By the fifth grade of primary school, Li Xiaodong's level was no less than that of junior high school students.
On the recommendation of the school coach, he came to Beijing to try out. During the trial session, the coach in charge of the selection did not put him on the shortlist because he was not considered to be standard.
In order for him to play the championship coach came to the door many times to persuade
The failure of the trial training hit Li Xiaodong very hard, and just when he was disheartened, a noble man appeared. This person is none other than China's first women's singles champion, Qiu Zhonghui, who was building the Beijing junior team and looking around for outstanding young talent.
When Qiu Zhonghui went to Li Xiaodong's school, the physical education teacher specially arranged for Li Xiaodong to fight with Qiu Zhonghui. Facing the world champion, Li Xiaodong showed a high level and even won the first game.
After the game, Qiu Zhonghui felt that Li Xiaodong's child had unlimited potential, and immediately decided to let Li Xiaodong join the junior team. However, Xiaodong's parents were afraid of delaying their studies and refused to let their son play ball.
In order to allow Li Xiaodong to join the team, Qiu Zhonghui came to the door many times to persuade Li Xiaodong's parents. At that time, Li Xiaodong had been admitted to a key middle school, and his mother had been resolutely opposed to letting his son give up his future to go to the table tennis team.
After a detailed discussion with his son, the father finally decided to respect his son's decision and let him give up school to join the table tennis team.
Qiu Zhonghui
The golden period of his career was spent in a hurry
After entering the professional team, Li Xiaodong found that there was still a long distance between him and the professional players. In order to catch up with the rest of the team, he basically spent his time in the arena.
In 1972, Li Xiaodong officially resumed training and competition. After his comeback, Li Xiaodong won the national team championship for the Beijing team, and he showed a very high level during the competition, and many people felt that Li Xiaodong should have no problem entering the national team.
However, time passed day by day, and seeing that many people younger than him had entered the national team, Li Xiaodong felt very anxious.
In fact, in the eyes of the coach, Li Xiaodong, who missed the golden period of his career, is already an old player with little potential to dig, so the door of the national team has not been opened to him.
Achieve great results in coaching positions
Although the athlete's career is not much brilliant, Li Xiaodong has a profound cultural heritage and is a talent and pen in the team. The team leader felt that Li Xiaodong was a good seedling to be a coach, so he let him stay in the team as a coach.
After becoming a coach, in order to make up for the regrets of his athletely career, he was very attentive to the players he led. At that time, there was a player named Teng Yi in the Beijing team, who was a genius but unruly, so many coaches did not dare to take him.
Li Xiaodong took the initiative to ask Ying to become Teng Yi's coach, in order to be able to take Teng Yi well, Li Xiaodong asked the leader for instructions to eat and live with Teng Yi. During that time, the pair of masters and apprentices were almost inseparable, and quickly cultivated tacit understanding and affection.
Li Xiaodong's training is very strict, and the requirements for the team members are also very high. In addition, relying on excellent theoretical knowledge, he also brought changes in the playing style of the Beijing team at that time, which made the Beijing team lead the trend for a time.
In addition to technical training, Li Xiaodong also gave the team members cultural lessons, and one of the important assignments in cultural classes was to write a diary. At that time, the cultural level of athletes was generally not high, and the diary could only write two or three lines, but Li Xiaodong's annotations to the diary were more than 500 words.
In order to be able to train good seedlings, Li Xiaodong is basically in the team, even during the relationship, he only sees his girlfriend once a week. Even after the Spring Festival, he had already returned to the team on the second day of the new year.
After arduous and rigorous training, Teng Yi, Yang Yuhua, Wang Yansheng and others led by Li Xiaodong soon became the main force of the national team. In the 1987 World Table Tennis Championships, Teng Yi successfully won the championship. In 1988, the Beijing men's team won four championships in all competitions.
During that time, Li Xiaodong was in the limelight, and he was also promoted to the head coach of the Beijing team for his merits. At this time, the coaching staff of the national table tennis team invited him and prepared to transfer him to be the coach of the national youth team.
After learning the news, his old friends came to persuade him not to go to the national team. Friends persuaded: "Rather for the chicken head than for the phoenix tail, even if you go to the national team, you are an ordinary coach, how can you be comfortable as the boss of the Beijing team." ”
Cultivate a number of champions for the national team
After entering the national team, Li Xiaodong's coaching career has reached a higher level. In the post of youth coach, he has successively led Liu Guoliang, Kong Linghui, Wang Tao, Wang Yonggang, Wang Liqin and others, which can be described as a remarkable achievement, and peach and plum are all over the world.
Because of the outstanding results of the men's team, after the Sydney Olympics, Li Xiaodong officially took over the national table tennis women's team, and he became the first head coach of the national table tennis team without "national player" experience.
The contradiction with Wang Nan is due to the different personalities
In the process of leading the women's table tennis team, Li Xiaodong was very smooth at the beginning. Especially in the 2001 Osaka World Table Tennis Championships, Chinese women's table tennis won the women's team, women's singles, women's doubles, mixed doubles and other championships.
When the moment he lifted the championship trophy, Li Xiaodong was very excited, and in an interview, he said with emotion: "Table tennis has given me a lot of things, what an honor." There are many more people in the country than I am capable of, but I can do this, and it really comes to the top, to the end. ”
Although Li Xiaodong said "to the top, to the end", although it was out of emotion, unfortunately, at the Busan Asian Games the following year, his words were fulfilled. Due to the contradiction between the main player Wang Nan and Li Xiaodong, this made the atmosphere in the women's table tennis team very tense for a time.
According to Wang Nan's later recollection, the contradiction between Li Xiaodong and Wang Nan is not a personal grudge, but in fact, it is a difference in personality and philosophy.
Li Xiaodong has always led the men's team, and the men get along relatively simply, so he is used to going straight and doing things very seriously. And women are delicate in their minds and need some gentle and gentle ways to get along.
In some training subjects and technical details, Li Xiaodong and Wang Nan also have great differences. Both are very serious people, and once they disagree, they will get stiff.
All in all, Li Xiaodong's teaching method is more suitable for men, but he does not understand women, so there will inevitably be some contradictions between him and Wang Nan, who was young and vigorous at that time.
In order to ease the contradictions, in the women's team final, head coach Cai Zhenhua even replaced head coach Li Xiaodong and personally commanded Wang Nan. Even so, famous players such as Wang Nan still played abnormally, resulting in the Chinese women's table tennis losing to North Korea 1-3.
After losing the final, domestic public opinion attacked women's table tennis, especially the main player Wang Nan, who became the central figure of this criticism storm.
Although Li Xiaodong was temporarily replaced, he still spoke for Wang Nan in front of the media.
Li Xiaodong seems to be a responsible and good coach. However, after the Asian Games in Busan, at the request of Wang Nan, former "national player" Qiao Hong became Wang Nan's head coach. In June 2003, Li Xiaodong was officially transferred to other positions, but still worked in the national team until his retirement.
He had always felt indebted to his daughter
Since joining the Beijing team, Li Xiaodong has almost put his life on table tennis. He rarely takes care of his own family and children. Even before his parents died, he didn't have time to see him for the last time.
In addition to rarely seeing his parents, he divorced in 1992 because he was less and divorced from his first wife, and his daughter Li Yanbing was sentenced to him. After becoming a single father, Li Xiaodong did not spend much time with his daughter.
Influenced by her father, Li Yanbing began to learn table tennis at a very young age and showed good talent. In fact, Li Xiaodong does not want his daughter to practice table tennis, because he does not want his daughter to owe the same to the family as himself. But what surprised him was that his daughter was able to enter the national second team with her own strength.
When he entered the national team, Li Xiaodong was already the head of the women's table tennis teaching and research group. The father and daughter meet in a stadium every day, but Li Xiaodong often ignores his daughter and does not talk to his daughter in order to avoid suspicion.
In this case, Li Yanbing did not receive much guidance, but felt an indescribable resignation. In the national team full of strong players, Li Yanbing did not appear too prominent, so he could not sit in the main position. When her daughter needed guidance, Li Xiaodong did not do anything, which made Li Yanbing feel very wronged.
For his daughter's accusations, Li Xiaodong was both distressed and helpless.
Agree with her daughter's choice
Li Xiaodong's words made Li Yanbing recognize the reality, in order to be able to participate in the World Series as the main force, when Li Yanbing was 18 years old, she chose to naturalize Austria and become a naturalized player.
As a member of the coaching staff of the national table tennis team, Li Xiaodong's daughter became a naturalized player, which once made headlines, and this matter became one of the main reasons why Li Xiaodong was transferred from the position of women's table tennis head coach.
But for the reasons why his daughter chose to go abroad, Li Xiaodong did not explain and never expressed regret. At the Beijing Olympics, Li Yanbing broke into the women's singles round of 16 as an Austrian player, which can be regarded as a tiger father and no dog daughter.
Li Yanbing married Austrian table tennis player Fegel in 2013 and gave birth to two lovely children. For Chinese table tennis fans, Fegel is an unforgettable character.
At the 2015 Polish Open, Fegel defeated Zhang Jike, who was in full swing at the time, and although he lost to Fan Zhendong as the runner-up, this did not prevent him from becoming a strong rival of the Chinese team for a time.
Retired without and left the world of table tennis
Although Li Xiaodong has long since retired, he is still active in the table tennis world, and in addition to being a guest in some business events, he is often invited by other provincial teams or training camps to guide training.
Every summer, daughter Li Yanbing and son-in-law Fegel take their children back to China to visit him. If there is a table tennis event, the couple will also participate with their father. At the event, it was found that Fegel was able to use some simple Chinese to talk to others, and it seems that in private, the communication between this foreign son-in-law and father-in-law should not be a problem.
In August 2011, Li Xiaodong was invited by the national football team to give a lesson on how to lead the team to football coaches at the Xianghe base. In addition to being a coach and lecturing, during the Olympic Games (such as the 2021 Tokyo Olympics) or the World Table Tennis Championships, many TV stations will use him as a commentator, and fans can often hear his comments on the game.
Table tennis is an inseparable part of Li Xiaodong's life, and he has also added many stories to table tennis. Although there is controversy over the naturalization of his daughter, but aside from the controversy, we will find that Li Xiaodong is lucky, because he has always been able to engage in the table tennis career he loves. It's a blessing to be able to do something you like from young to old.
Resources:
Li Xiaodong, coach of the Chinese women's table tennis team, commented on Wang Nan's battle against Zhang Yining Xinhuanet
Yang Ying: Wang Hao's style of play is fierce Li Xiaodong: He likes the war king Liqin Nanhai net the most
Wang Nan disclosed the inside story of the change of coach: Find someone who can understand me better China News Network
Women's team coach Li Xiaodong——— Wang Nan lost for another reason West China Metropolis News