Recently, I saw an old news about Chinese weightlifting Olympic champion Chen Xiaomin that was stirred up on the Internet, and the author of the article broke the "amazing" news: the former Olympic champion Chen Xiaomin auctioned all the gold medals at a high price of 3.99 million after retiring, and then resigned from public office and immigrated to Australia with his family!
The article portrays a great athlete who is tenacious and strives for glory and honor for his countrymen as a traitor who embraces the moon abroad even if he abandons his past honor. Not only did the domestic concoction concoct many similar articles, but they were also exported abroad and quoted by a large number of anti-China media.
But what is the truth? Did Chen Xiaomin really use the money obtained from the auction gold medal to emigrate abroad?
1. Mountain village girls are inspired to change their fate by lifting weights
In 1997, Chen Xiaomin was born in an ordinary peasant family in Heshan County, Guangdong Province, with six sisters, and she was the second oldest. Because he had to help his parents do farm work since he was a child, Chen Xiaomin practiced a lot of strength.
In 1988, Heshan County responded to the call of the state to set up a weightlifting team, the coach went to the county's primary schools to select weightlifting seedlings, 11-year-old Chen Xiaomin was taken by the coach at a glance, the coach asked her if she wanted to enter a sports school to train her weight and win glory for the country in the future?
Although Chen Xiaomin is only a young age, her thinking is very mature, and since she was a child, looking at her parents who face the loess with their backs to the sky, she knows that if she wants to get ahead, she must go out of the mountain village and go to the big city, so she agreed without hesitation.
After practicing for two months, Chen Xiaomin went home to rest because of an elbow injury, and her parents were very distressed and said to her: "Otherwise, let's not practice?" ”
Chen Xiaomin shook her head, she knew that if she gave up like this, she would only be able to carry a hoe in the field every day like her parents in the future.
After recovering from her injuries, she returned to sports school, and she practiced harder.
The hard work paid off, Chen Xiaomin's efforts paid off, and in 1990, Chen Xiaomin entered the provincial team and went to a bigger stage. But before she had time to rejoice, she suffered a heavy blow.
The provincial team is the best selected in various counties and cities, Chen Xiaomin has no advantage at once, and what makes her collapse is that in order to pursue results in sports school, she developed a bad weightlifting habit, resulting in a "knife hand", that is, the elbow joint is congenitally turned outward, this hand shape is easy to fall backwards and injured when the grasp is forced, if not corrected, it is likely to ruin her sports career.
But how easy is it to correct the way of power engraved in her muscles, fortunately she met a good coach - Cai Juncheng. Coach Cai Juncheng directly formulated a special training plan for her.
But no matter how perfect the training plan is, it also requires the athlete's own action and perseverance. For the technical essentials that are easy for others, Chen Xiaomin has to train thousands of times here, and when the other team members can finish training early and go back to the dormitory to rest, Chen Xiaomin has to stay and practice.
Compared with the sports school, such days are only more bitter, but Chen Xiaomin did not flinch at all, she got up before dawn to do physical training, and adjusted her movements in the training ground late at night.
The hard work paid off, and in 1993, Chen Xiaomin participated in the 7th National Games, her first major sports event, and if she did well, she could participate in the 7th Women's Weightlifting Championships in Beijing.
Chen Xiaomin lived up to expectations, not only won the 54kg category, but also broke three Asian records in the snatch, jerk and overall six times, Chen Xiaomin also easily got a ticket to participate in the 7th Women's Weightlifting Championships.
At the World Championships, Chen Xiaomin once again set a new record, winning three championships in the women's 54kg snatch, jerk and overall result, and setting three world records in the category.
This year, Chen Xiaomin was only 16 years old!
From 1993, when he first emerged in international competitions, in 1997, Chen Xiaomin won the National Games, Asian Championships and World Championships.
2. Standing on the top podium of the Olympic Games with the risk of paralysis
The championship brings not only glory and applause, but also pain.
Because long-term weight lifting is very harmful to the body, and Chen Xiaomin is not fatal when she is trained, her injury is more serious than others. But she was only 20 years old at the time, and she was really unwilling to end her career as an athlete, especially when women's weightlifting was already included in the Olympic program.
What an honor it would be if she could win a gold medal at the next 2000 Sydney Olympics and achieve a "Grand Slam" as an athlete!
However, due to the injury, Chen Xiaomin's training state was not good, and under the ghost obsession, she did something that she regretted, and in an international competition in 1997, Chen Xiaomin used doping and was required to be banned for two years.
This is definitely a heavy blow to 20-year-old Chen Xiaomin. Fortunately, with the encouragement of his coach and family, Chen Xiaomin regained his strength, and the two years of banning were just enough to fully prepare for the Olympics in three years.
However, because Chen Xiaomin completely ignored her physical pain as soon as she started training, her injuries worsened, and even so serious that she could only rely on a wheelchair when she went out, and she couldn't even take care of simple things such as dressing and eating, and the doctor told her that if she continued to practice, she was likely to be paralyzed.
Despite this, Chen Xiaomin did not want to give up, she returned to the Guangdong provincial team, Guangdong organized the most authoritative orthopedic experts to treat her, because of long-term training Chen Xiaomin's lumbar muscles are more developed than ordinary people, experts said that the longest needle must be used to be useful.
Chen Xiaomin said that as long as the injury can be healed, he will not be afraid of pain. When the needle pierced the injured nerve, Chen Xiaomin said: "At that moment, I will never forget it in my life, it is really more uncomfortable than death." ”
It was with this unyielding energy that in 2000, 23-year-old Chen Xiaomin stood on the highest podium of the Olympic Games, and at that moment, she couldn't stop her tears.
In her tears, there are both the glory of winning glory for the country, the joy of realizing her dreams, and the heartache for herself: too hard and cruel!
Chen Xiaomin also knows very well that this will be the last gold medal of her sports career. Although she is only 23 years old, her body can only support her to get here, and let her sports career stop at this moment, which is also the most perfect ending.
3. Retired Olympic champions auction gold medals to donate to build schools in their hometowns
In 2001, Chen Xiaomin retired.
After retiring from the military, she entered Guangdong Business College to study law and successfully obtained a bachelor's degree, and then served as the secretary of the newspaper's Youth League Committee at the invitation of the director of Yangcheng Evening News.
During her time at the newspaper, she learned a lot about human suffering, especially when she returned to her hometown, she saw that the primary school in her hometown was very dilapidated, there were no decent classrooms and playgrounds, and many children dropped out of school because their families had no money.
Chen Xiaomin was very heartbroken, so he decided what to do for his hometown. At this time, she thought of the 9 gold medals she won when she was an athlete, if these gold medals were auctioned, wouldn't it help these children?
Chen Xiaomin immediately contacted the auction house to discuss the auction, and her family strongly objected when they learned that she was going to auction the gold medal.
You must know that these gold medals are Chen Xiaomin's blood and sweat in exchange, not only the glory of Chen Xiaomin alone, but also the glory of the whole family, if the auction, then everything she paid in the past will not be in vain?
Chen Xiaomin said that these are all things outside his body, and selling the gold medal cannot negate his achievements. The gold medal is just a decoration at home, and the auction can help those in need, and it is the real value of it.
In 2003, Chen Xiaomin publicly auctioned her Olympic gold medal without reserve, and was finally auctioned by a hotel in Guangzhou for 1.28 million yuan, and then she auctioned another 8 gold medals, a total of 3.99 million yuan in auction money, she used these funds to build a hope primary school in her hometown, the people of her hometown are very grateful to Chen Xiaomin, and Chen Xiaomin's kind deeds have also been recognized by all walks of life.
4. The immigration of Olympic champions caused controversy, and the courage to return to China to form a chest model was good
In 2005, Chen Xiaomin married her boyfriend Wu Dan, who had been in love for 8 years, and in 2007, the two gave birth to a lovely son.
After giving birth, the root of the disease that he had fallen from being an athlete began to recur, and Chen Xiaomin had to resign from the Yangcheng Evening News and go to Australia for treatment.
In order to better recuperate, in 2013, Chen Xiaomin decided to immigrate to Australia with his family, which also caused an uproar in public opinion.
Many people don't know why, they all think that Chen Xiaomin is like some ungrateful people, after relying on the country to cultivate fame and fortune, they have run abroad to add bricks to other countries.
There are even some people with intentions who link Chen Xiaomin's auction of gold medals in 2003 with immigration to Australia 10 years later, saying that Chen Xiaomin used the proceeds of the auction gold medals to immigrate.
Let's not mention that these two things are 10 years apart, the two have nothing to do with each other, and furthermore, immigration is completely a personal choice, and there is no need to go online as soon as you hear about immigration, which is said to be unpatriotic.
Many people don't know that Chen Xiaomin is a master of investment and financial management.
In 2000, after Chen Xiaomin won the Olympic championship, she often received some real estate advertisements, and some advertisers used the house to offset the advertising fee, which planted the seeds for her subsequent house speculation.
But she really got involved in real estate in 2005.
At that time, she took a fancy to an old villa of more than 400 square meters in Dongshan District, Guangzhou, most of which have complex property rights and are difficult to change hands. But Chen Xiaomin especially liked this villa, and still won this villa for a total price of 3 million. Of course, the down payment for buying a house is the bonus she earned when she was an athlete.
When she immigrated to Australia in 2013, the villa cashed out more than 20 million.
In addition to buying villas, Chen Xiaomin also invested in school district houses, because of the low interest rate of the loan at that time, and there was no purchase limit, at most she had seven or eight sets of school district houses on hand, and the monthly payment was more than 100,000 yuan.
After the real estate trend began to slow down, she began to sell her properties and turn to the stock market, which was a bear market, and she boldly reinvested a stock with the money from selling villas, which multiplied several times in a year.
So before Chen Xiaomin immigrated to Australia, she had already achieved financial freedom, and she didn't need to rely on auction gold medals to immigrate.
The last time Chen Xiaomin appeared in front of the public was in 2016, but she didn't expect that this time she appeared as a contestant in the chest model competition.
For Chen Xiaomin, the biggest regret in her life is that at the most beautiful age, she can only train in the training gym every day, and female athletes who lift weights simply cannot dress up like ordinary girls.
After retiring, although she can dress up, because the training has brought irreversible damage to her body, her body is covered with large and small scars, and she is not confident in her figure at all.
In 2016, she saw the news that the 10th China Breast Model Competition would be held in Guangzhou. At this time, a voice told her: I want to make up for the regrets of my youth.
In order to stand on the stage in the most beautiful posture, she returned to China for breast augmentation surgery and also adjusted her face.
In June 2016, 40-year-old Chen Xiaomin stood on the stage of the 10th China Breast Model Competition and won the top ten in China.
Chen Xiaomin on the stage wore a long skirt and walked to the audience in style, at this moment, she was confident, beautiful and generous.
As she told reporters after the game:
The national weightlifting team gave me the opportunity to win the Olympic championship, and the chest model competition provided me with the perfect stage for transformation, allowing me to become the most beautiful Chen Xiaomin in life.
Epilogue:
Not to mention how many people can produce an Olympic champion, world champion, even after winning the world championship and retiring, after fading the halo of the world champion, many people can not even maintain their basic livelihood, over the years we have not seen the news of the world champion's life after retirement.
Zou Chunlan, who has won the national championship many times, has a difficult life after retiring, living less than 5 square meters, relying on working as a "bath worker" in the bathhouse to make a living.
Sang Xue, the Olympic champion of diving, achieved a "grand slam" in the women's 10-meter platform World Cup, the World Championships and the Olympic Games. After retiring from the military, in order to raise money for her mother's medical treatment, she worked in restaurants, worked as a waitress and part-time, and when she was at her poorest, she wanted to sell her medals to survive.
The reason why Chen Xiaomin was able to achieve financial freedom after retiring was because she was a very crisis-conscious person, she said: At that time, if you took the bonus and did not invest, the bonus from more than a decade ago may now only be enough to buy a toilet. Many athletes have too serious a "wait and depend" mentality, and finally understand that they have to rely on themselves for everything. ”
Compared with those traffic stars who pay tens of millions of dollars for a film at every turn, we are more willing to hear about these athletes who have spent their blood and sweat to win honors for the country, and they have a worry-free life, rather than smearing them with the matter of "going abroad", isn't it?