Liu Guoliang, the first Grand Slam player of the mainland table tennis men's team, the World Table Tennis Federation was so afraid of him that he changed the rules specifically for him, and after being targeted, he had no choice but to retire at the young age of 26.
After retiring, he did not leave his favorite table tennis business, but retired to the background to "raise wolves", and the wolves he raised pushed him to the world altar.
That is, the students he taught directly became world medal harvesters, and they directly got one, two or three in their hands in the world-class table tennis competition, and insisted on not giving other countries a sip of soup.
As a result, the table federation jumped to his feet again, originally he only occupied a prize spot when he went to play, and later, he was forced by them to stop playing.
He retreated to the back to teach people, and as a result, the talents he taught directly occupied the award places again, and the table federation is really because China has such a Liu Guoliang, and the rules are changed again and again.
People say "shoot the branch bird", if you are too good, people will keep staring at you and not letting you be good. Liu Guoliang is like this, encountering one thing after another.
Later, Liu Guoliang revealed in an interview with "Fengyun Club" in 2019 that when he stepped down from the position of head coach, he would rather not do it than be demoted.
Meet Liu Guoliang
Liu Guoliang, a native of Xinxiang, Henan, began to contact table tennis at the age of six, and he showed extraordinary talent and aura in table tennis at a young age, and was selected into the Bayi team at the age of ten.
In 1991, mainland table tennis entered a historical trough, and at this time, Liu Guoliang's genius in the field of table tennis was discovered by the state and he was accepted into the national team.
The next year, he defeated Waldner at the National Table Tennis Open and was directly famous all over the world. In 1995, at the 43rd World Table Tennis Championships in Tianjin, he became a stormtrooper in the team and became a scoring harvester, contributing a large number of points to the team's victory.
In 1996, he reached the pinnacle of his life, this year, he first won the men's singles championship in the 17th World Cup, and then won the first men's singles Olympic gold medal in Chinese table tennis at the 26th Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Subsequently, he and Kong Linghui combined their swords to win the men's doubles Olympic gold medal, and at the age of only 20, he became the Olympic men's table tennis double champion.
In 1999, in the fourteenth and fifteenth table tennis championships, whether it was singles or doubles, as long as it was a competition, as long as he participated, then the champion column could only be his name, and no one else had anything.
It's just that how can others be willing to see you continue to be so brilliant, starting from October 24, 1999, for half a year, he has lived in dire straits, and it is also the darkest moment of his life.
That is, the Dutch Drug Testing Center thought that Liu Guoliang had a problem with a drug test at the World Individual Championships in the Netherlands, and he himself was stunned when he learned about it, thinking that it was "absolutely impossible".
Later, the test result was that the epididymis exceeded the standard, and the epididymis is not a stimulant, but if it is taken, it can cover up the traces of doping, so it is also a prohibited drug.
After that, he was followed and investigated by the ITTF for three months, during which he was repeatedly subjected to drug tests for surprise attacks.
Liu Guoliang is a little unbearable, and even wants to retire, he knows that he is innocent, but this kind of thing is not something you can say.
At that time, he not only had to undergo drug tests while training, but also "played games with black pots on his back." The pressure has never been greater.
As a result, after repeated testing by several international authoritative institutions, it was concluded that it was a problem with the fluctuation of his body's own secretion level, not caused by taking drugs.
He was tossed for months in vain, and he was really physically and mentally exhausted. As a result, the ITTF could not bring down Liu Guoliang here, so it changed the rules of the table tennis competition.
That is, the small ball is changed to the big ball, and the serve cannot be blocked by the rule, which can be seen by discerning people, and it is a rule made against Wu Guoliang's invincible hand.
Then, in July 2002, Liu Guoliang, who was only 26 years old, retired with disdain, but when he recalled this difficult career as an athlete, he felt that he had no regrets, after all, he had reached the highest peak and experienced setbacks.
He knows what kind of mentality athletes face in each scenario, and he can accumulate experience as a coach for himself.
After retiring, he became the coach of the national table tennis team and later promoted to the head coach of the men's team, and as a result, his head coach, who was less than thirty years old, received doubts from all sides.
Even though he is the best player in the world, as a coach, many people feel that he is too tender to take on the responsibility of coaching.
Liu Guoliang himself said that when he first became a coach, he was very lonely, because the players with him were still athletes, only he became a coach, he was a young man, mixed in the old coach's team all day, alone, without companions.
At the same time, shortly after becoming the head coach, he also suffered a setback, that is, his students lost the men's singles table tennis final at the Athens Olympics in Athens and missed the gold medal for the first time.
After this defeat, he summed up his experience, he believes that kindness is cruelty to the team, so he is no longer soft on the players.
Training to the death under the right method, torturing the players in his hands to death, sometimes to the point of not even being close to people, which also allows his players to get enough sharpening in terms of psychological quality and ball skills.
After a long period of honing and accumulation, when it came to the World Series, his players even felt that it was a pleasure and could face the game easily.
Sure enough, four years later, at the Beijing Olympics, he was humiliated, not only let the mainland men's table tennis win the championship in the men's team event, but also contracted the top three men's singles, watching three five-star red flags raised at the same time in the Olympic arena, he shed tears of excitement.
As a result, the ITTF couldn't stand it again, and after some discussion, the new rules for him came, that is, in the future, a single competition can only produce two places in a country.
They should be afraid that every time China will wrap up the gold, silver, and bronze medals, they will make their faces dull, so they changed the rules again and again for Liu Guoliang.
Later, the reform of the national table tennis management model made Liu Guoliang equivalent to being demoted, and after the demotion, his wolf breeding plan would naturally be affected to a certain extent, so he would rather resign than engage in politics.
If you leave your post, you will leave
Liu Guoliang in the table tennis industry, whether he plays by himself or teaches people behind the scenes, his achievements are undoubtedly outstanding, and his contribution to the development of table tennis in the mainland is undoubtedly huge.
Although he was once evaluated as a fat man who did not understand the ball, in the end, he still used his strength to slap those who did not recognize him in the face.
During his tenure as a coach, the mainland table tennis team almost swept the monopoly position of the whole world, no matter how many events, in short, the championship was won by our countrymen.
During his coaching period, according to his own way, he raised a batch of "wolves" in the table tennis industry, which raised the technical level of mainland table tennis by several gears, so that it could stand in the position of the altar in front of all countries in the world.
Grand Slam players like Zhang Jike and Ma Long are his students, and excellent players such as Pan Zhendong and Xu Xin are also his proud works.
However, in 2017, the national table tennis changed the management model, so that the positions of general and head coaches were abolished, and two training groups for men and women were set up. If you want to compete and manage both, you want to grasp both.
It is believed that such a reform can make the national table tennis go to a higher level, so that it can better meet the challenges of the future.
In this way, Liu Guoliang's position as head coach naturally disappeared, and then, he was demoted to be the head of the men's national team coaching staff, which was equivalent to being demoted.
Liu Guoliang thought that this was not what he wanted, he did not want to run back to be a team leader after the structural change, so he took the initiative to leave.
After stepping down as the head coach, he transferred to the vice president of the National Table Tennis Association, which is equivalent to him no longer serving as a coach in the future, and his coaching career for more than ten years has come to an end.
As a result, after Liu Guoliang left, Guoping's state directly took a sharp turn, and the news of consecutive defeats came one after another. Originally very good athletes, it is difficult to escape the strange circle of defeat.
On the first day when Liu Liangliang was not a coach, when the national table tennis team members and coaches went to Sichuan to participate in the table tennis open, they did not understand whether the athletes did not adjust their state well or were affected by Liu Guoliang's resignation, the athletes' morale and mental state were low, and the performance of the competition was very bad.
In the first round of the qualification round of the China Table Tennis Open held in Chengdu, world No. 29 Lin Gaoyuan even lost to world No. 115 Hong Kong's Lin Zhaoheng, and world No. 41 Liang Jingkun actually lost to world No. 301 Peng Wangwei.
In the first round of the men's singles, Zhang Jike arrived in a hurry before the match, only to play one game and withdrew from the game after injuring his waist.
In the men's doubles semifinals, Xu Xin and Pan Zhenle faced Zhang Benzhi and Muzo, two Japanese, but won the match by the Japanese with a big score of 2:0.
In the second round of men's table tennis men's singles, outstanding players such as Ma Long and Pan Zhendong announced their withdrawal, and the audience shouted Liu Guoliang's name.
In the 2017 Table Tennis World Cup, although Ma Long entered the final four, he accidentally lost to German athlete Boll when he led 3:1 in the semifinals, which is the first time that the mainland table tennis team failed to enter the World Cup final in 18 years, which is really unimaginable.
He served as the head coach of national table tennis again
In September 2018, the Chinese Table Tennis Association decided to let Liu Guoliang preside over the work of the Table Tennis Association and serve as the leader of the preparatory group.
This means that this "fat man who does not understand the ball" has returned, and as soon as the news came out, the national table tennis players felt that their spirit and soul were back in place, and everyone began to be full of confidence.
On September 29, 2018, Liu Guoliang appeared at the Women's Table Tennis World Cup, and people were amazed when they saw him.
As a result, in the women's World Cup singles final, Ding Ning even defeated Japanese athlete Yoshijun Ishikawa 4:0, and Yoshijun Ishikawa was defeated so completely that he cried and cried after the match.
This time is a big gift given to him by the national table tennis team members after Liu Guoliang's return, and it can also be seen how great his mental impact on national table tennis athletes is.
Liu Guoliang has carefully observed the athletes' state, psychological problems and other aspects, and can enlighten the athletes in time and nip the problems in the bud.
Like Pan Zhendong is an example, during Liu Guoliang's departure from Guoping, Pan Zhendong just fell into a huge bottleneck in his career at this time.
And Liu Guoliang's return, noticed Pan Zhendong's abnormality, he found Pan Zhendong's problem, and gave him psychological enlightenment many times, which made Pan Zhendong seem to have caught a life-saving straw in the dark, full of blood and resurrected.
In the Men's Table Tennis World Cup in October 2018, Pan Zhendong changed his previous state and participated in the competition in good spirits.
In this match against Boll from Germany, he played at a super level, and finally won the World Cup men's singles championship easily 4:1.
This is also the first time that the men's team has won the first World Cup championship in a major competition after Liu Guoliang returned to the position of national table tennis head coach.
Not only Pan Zhendong has been changed, but the problems of other team members, after Liu Guoliang's return to grasp it hard, the entire mental outlook of mainland table tennis players has been directly renewed.
This can be seen in the performance of the next competition, like October 30, 2018, in the first round of the Swedish Open qualification and the second round of the qualification that ended before, the Chinese men's table tennis did not have the decline of the previous Open qualification match, swept many opponents, and stood out.
Like Xue Fei, Zhou Yu, Zheng Peifeng, etc. have all defeated their opponents and beat each other to the point that they don't know each other, Zhou Qihao even won a second consecutive victory.
Immediately afterwards, Liang Jingkun and Yu Ziyang were also unbearable, catching their opponents by surprise, as if possessed by immortals, victories were transmitted back to China one after another, which doubled the national pride.
In the end, the national table tennis hero won seven consecutive victories in the opening competition, and also made five 4:0 scores, and the opponent did not win a point, which surprised countries around the world.
They are all reflecting on how the "fat man who doesn't understand balls" they once thought has so much energy, and as soon as he comes back, he makes such a big move.
Directly let the athletes sweep away the previous sluggish and undulating mental outlook, and the world championship harvester directly returns to its roots.
Now Liu Guoliang
Since then, Liu Guoliang has been in the position of head coach, but because he has paid for the national table tennis for many years, he rarely has time to accompany his family.
Therefore, in recent years, he has also been looking for his head coach successor, and after having a successor, he can put aside the work of National Table Tennis and accompany his family.
According to his own account, since May 6, 2010, his wife and his childhood sweetheart Wang Jin gave birth to a pair of twin daughters for him, although he was very excited to become a father, but because of work, he has been with his wife and daughter for three or four months a year.
Although his wife also wants to be with him, she also understands and supports his work.
When asked by a reporter if he had the idea of training his twin daughters to become table tennis players, he said that he would not let them play table tennis, because no matter how they played, it was impossible to surpass him.
He said that it is good for girls to be happy and happy, and it is quite happy to have their daughter by their side after retiring, which is the happiness of raising a daughter, because the daughter is more family-oriented, unlike raising a son, raising a son is a spiritual pride, and a daughter is a kind of actual happiness.
Indeed, as he said, not ordinary people can surpass his level, and if there are a few more Liu Guoliang on the mainland, then Guoping can continue to be brilliant.
Resources:
Liu Guoliang Beyond Solitude and Freedom Chen Xi; Liang Wei Chinese Sons and Daughters 2010-06-20 Featured Periodical
Liu Guoliang Golden Age 2017-08-08 Featured Periodical
The impact of Liu Guoliang's two role changes on Guoping Zhu Zhichao; Liu Hao Contemporary Sports Science and Technology 2019-05-25 Journal
Meet Liu Guoliang Ren Peixi Happy Language 2019-03-01 Featured Periodicals
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Author: Li Li
EDIT: As it is