Du Li: Both a "sharpshooter" and a "good godhead"

Original title: From Athens Olympic Champion Athlete to Tokyo Olympic Champion Coach (Introduction)

Du Li: Both "Sharpshooter" and "Good Coach" (theme)

Yangcheng Evening News reporter Ouyang Zhiqiang Xie Hong

In August this year, China's "00" youngster Zhang Changhong won the Tokyo Olympic Shooting Men's 50m Rifle Three-Posture Championship, and a month later won the event at the National Games, Zhang Changhong's coach is Du Li. At the Athens Olympic Games 17 years ago, the 22-year-old Du Li overpowered a number of world famous players and won the first gold of the Olympic Games, and has since become popular throughout the country. Recently, the Yangcheng Evening News reporter conducted an exclusive interview with Du Li, revealing the Olympic champion's journey beyond herself and telling her Guangdong fate.

At the donation ceremony of the honor hall of the Shooting archery sports management center of the State General Administration of Sport in Foshan, Guangdong Province, where the pottery works in Foshan, Guangdong Province, were permanently included in Tibet, the reporter met Du Li, a benchmark figure in China's shooting projects. Du Li, who is still busy as the coach of the Chinese shooting team, rushed to the shooting and archery training base in Putian, Fujian Province, after a brief interview with reporters, to prepare for the next competition.

Du Li has a lot of aura, she is a two-time Olympic champion, her husband Pang Wei is also an Olympic champion, and now her disciple has also become an Olympic champion. At this year's Tokyo Olympic Games, Du Li's husband Pang Wei won a lot of money, winning his second Olympic gold medal and also winning the third place in the men's 10m air rifle; and Du Li's beloved Zhang Changhong also successfully won the championship.

Du Li (left) and Xie Hong, reporter of Yangcheng Evening News, and Ouyang Zhiqiang, reporter of Yangcheng Evening News, took photos

1. Talk about work, always do not accept defeat

Yangcheng Evening News: After completing the transition from a gold medal athlete to a gold medal coach, what are your different feelings in this process?

Du Li: When I was about 20 years old, my coach asked me if he wanted to be a coach after retirement, and I said that I would never be a coach, and I felt that being a coach was too difficult and too hard. Maybe it's easier to be an athlete and just need to do what you need to do; but when the coach needs to channel some of your ideas to the athlete, the athlete may still be subject to some restrictions on execution.

Unexpectedly, after more than ten years, I naturally turned to the business of coaching. Why did I change my mind to become a coach? In fact, as I got older and more mature in my thinking, I could not let go of my love for this project. I feel that after all, I have been working hard in the shooting project for more than twenty years, and I still don't want to leave the industry.

There may be many good athletes who choose to retire or transform into other projects after achieving good results, but I want to challenge myself. They all said that you are an athlete, and it is the easiest and easiest to transform into a coach, in fact, I thought the same at the time, but it was not really done.

I think the pressure of retiring as an Olympic champion and then becoming a coach is something that ordinary people can't bear. Generally speaking, the average person as a coach will have a buffer period, which may give you an Olympic Games or a few years for you to slowly learn to practice, and you will have enough time, enough opportunities and experience to transition. However, for the Transformation of Olympic Champions to become coaches, the expectations of the outside world are very high, and they feel that the champions should be champions, not even runners-up, including the World Cup, national competitions and other large and small competitions should not appear bad rankings. So I think the real technical test for me [as a coach] is not very big, but the psychological pressure will be greater.

Yangcheng Evening News: Under such great psychological pressure, what makes you insist on making one breakthrough after another and bringing out the champions at this year's Tokyo Olympic Games?

Du Li: When I was an athlete, I experienced countless big and small events, and since then I have never accepted defeat. In fact, there are many times I have thought: 'Duli, you give up, don't make yourself so tired.' But in the end I gritted my teeth and survived, it was really not easy, but I always wanted to be able to go down the road of being a coach.

2. Talk about family, tears in your eyes many times

Yangcheng Evening News: At the Tokyo Olympics this year, as a coach, your trainees won the Olympic gold medal; as a wife, your husband Pang Wei also won the Olympic gold medal, and there are many halos on you, what are the things that make you particularly unforgettable?

Du Li: Perhaps the most memorable thing is the just-concluded Tokyo Olympics. From 2004 to 2020, I competed with my husband Pang Wei in every Olympic Games, but in so many Olympic Games, except for this year's Tokyo Olympics, I have not seen a single game of my husband. Because the shooting project is very special, I always feel that if I was on the scene, I was worried that it would cause him some psychological impact, and I always felt that he would have some entanglements and not enough concentration, so I never watched his game. Or sometimes I would sneak a peek through the crack in the door, but I would never watch the game all the time.

Only when he participated in the final of the shooting mixed team at the Tokyo Olympic Games, as a coach, I was in a hurry to go to the scene, and he also saw me, so I plucked up enough courage to watch the whole game on the spot. At that time, I thought Pang Wei was in good shape, so I completely let go, and I didn't want to leave myself regrets, because this may be the last Olympic Games for him.

The whole process can be described as thrilling, watching the game on the spot and watching it on TV, the feeling is completely different, that is, until now I can't forget that scene, the whole process is too heart-wrenching, I feel that I have never been so heart-wrenching in my own game. What kind of feeling is that? It was that I felt my tears swirling in my eyes all the time, and there was a particularly excited and touching emotion in it (Du Li couldn't help but burst into tears when talking about this experience).

Yangcheng Evening News: Both of you are Olympic champions, now you are still the coach of the Olympic champion, Pang Wei is an athlete, usually very busy, how do you achieve balance in your life?

Du Li: The two of us have been married for more than ten years, and professional athletes and coaches are very busy on weekdays, and the rest time of the year is at most more than a month, so it is too difficult to achieve a balance of life. Of course, we both retired at different stages, but each Olympic Games did not fall behind.

The two of us got married in 2008, and now that the child is 11 years old, I think there is so much to be owed to the child. I remember two days ago, when I came home from vacation, my son said to me, "Mom, since I was born, you have not been with me for at least 4/5 of the time." "I always thought my son didn't care about that. Because every time I left with his dad Pang Wei, he never said crying and disagreeing. But when my son suddenly said this to me that day, I felt like I might have to choose a new career and family.

Yangcheng Evening News: You always can't help but shed tears when you talk about your husband and children, it is really difficult to choose between career and family, in your opinion, which side is more important in your heart?

Du Li: There is no way, many times I have made up my mind to choose my family, but when I really waited until the Olympic Games, when the country needed you, I did not hesitate to choose a career.

3. Talk about Guangdong, like Shunde cuisine

Yangcheng Evening News: The Huangcun Shooting Training Base is in Guangzhou, and you often come to Guangzhou for training before, what do you think you have with Guangdong?

Du Li: My relationship with Guangdong is so deep that I come several times almost every year. The Huangcun base is an important base for our Olympic preparations, and the most memorable thing is that when my son was more than one year old, he was not completely weaned at that time, and I had to be with him. It happened that there was a very important selection contest in Huangcun, Guangzhou, and I had to take him to the Huangcun base, we stayed in the hotel together, and I took care of him while participating in the training, and stayed there for about half a year. Until now, I mentioned the Huangcun base to my son, and he still remembers it very clearly.

Yangcheng Evening News: What is your impression of Guangzhou and Foshan?

Du Li: The most impressive thing is the food. My mother and my son like to eat Cantonese seafood pots and oysters, and not long ago, my mother told me that she wanted to eat Cantonese oysters. When I was not yet married, I liked to go out with my friends for a walk, and at that time we all liked to eat Shunde food, and I felt that I didn't eat enough every time I went to Shunde. Sometimes I would find some Shunde dishes in Beijing, but I never had the local taste of Shunde.

Yangcheng Evening News: On October 14, the sculpture donation ceremony of the Shooting archery sports management center of the State General Administration of Sport was held in Beijing, and the work "Hundred Hairs and Hundreds of Middle Schools" by Huang Zhiwei, a master of Chinese arts and crafts and a master of Chinese ceramic art from Foshan, Guangdong Province, and "Hit", a collaboration between Liu Tingjun and Huang Zhiwei, a young designer of the "post-00s", were permanently included in the Honor Hall of the Shooting and Archery Sports Management Center of the State General Administration of Sport. As we all know, Foshan is a famous historical and cultural city, pottery is also a cultural business card of Foshan, through the combination of pottery culture and sports, presenting a unique beauty, what do you think?

Du Li: I am very grateful to the pottery master Huang Zhiwei and the young designer Liu Tingjun for their support for the shooting project, the two pottery works "Hundred Hairs and Hundreds of Hits" and the work "Hit" I have carefully watched, and I really feel very shocked. At the same time, I also hope that Huang Zhiwei will continue to support and pay attention to our shooting and archery projects in the future.