China is recognized as the world's table tennis kingdom, and countless world champions have been born here, so much so that people are joking: "It is more difficult to win a championship in China than to win a championship in the world." ”
Of course, this is first and foremost thanks to our national system. The country's attention and long-term complete grassroots strength training have enabled the mainland to have a large number of table tennis reserve talents, and the players have trained and competed together since childhood, which has created a benign competitive atmosphere, which is also the reason why the mainland has been at the peak of the world for a long time in the sport.
Because the mainland's table tennis performance is too bright, many countries are trying to import talents from the mainland in order to learn more advanced technical and tactical concepts, for which they often do not hesitate to spend a lot of money.
There are many table tennis talents in the mainland, and in the fiercely competitive country, many people simply cannot play, so in line with the principle of "please come in and go out", many Chinese players choose to play overseas, and some even do not hesitate to change their nationality, creating a huge Chinese "overseas corps".
But not all of them can't stand up to such temptations, and former world champion Poplar is such a person. Faced with the temptation of high salary and green card overseas, she flatly refused and resolutely chose to stay in China silently, and her past episode of being expelled from the national team also gave us a deeper understanding of her.
Yin and yang, love and ping-pong
In 1984, Bai Yang was born in an ordinary family in Baoding, Hebei Province, when Bai Yang was a child, because of her beautiful face and tall figure, her father had always planned to let him learn dance, but he was late when he registered, and it was this time that the registration was unsuccessful, but he made a table tennis world champion.
Before entering the house, Bai Yang's father met an old acquaintance, Tang Yinsheng, who was a table tennis coach at the sports school at the time.
When they exchanged pleasantries, Coach Tang learned that Bai Yang was going to apply for the dance class, so he said to Bai Yang's father: "Old Bai, how about letting the child practice with me, I see that this child has good conditions, and he can't play well." ”
In this way, 5-year-old Xiao Baiyang entered Baoding Amateur Sports School, and Tang Yinsheng also became her enlightenment coach.
Mention Tang Yinsheng is also famous, through his hands have trained Niu Jianfeng, Gao Jun and many other table tennis stars, Bai Yang can be guided by famous marshals when he first contacts table tennis, it should be said that her starting point is still very high.
But the child's nature is to love to play, the little poplar is the same, just entered the sports school to endure high-intensity training, poplar obviously can not adapt, training late, greedy play, sneaking out are common, for this Coach Tang did not criticize her, the aggrieved poplar will always cry, she has since fallen a crying nose problem.
Once Poplar did not train seriously, always unable to concentrate when fighting against his teammates, in the face of this child who is usually inferior to himself, Poplar was actually beaten and could not raise his head, Coach Tang was also anxious, rushed up and slapped Poplar a few times.
After being beaten, Bai Yang was briefly stunned for a few seconds, and then he cried with his throat, because Coach Tang had never hit Poplar before, and this time the coach was really anxious.
Later, according to Coach Tang's recollection, he said: "That time I really hated iron but not steel", and these slaps really woke up Poplar.
Since then, Poplar's training attitude has obviously been much corrected, and her discipline has strengthened a lot, and these are directly reflected in her training level, her technical and tactical ability and physical strength have been greatly improved, and Xiao Poplar has developed a knack.
In 1994, when Bai Yang was just 10 years old, he won the singles championship in a table tennis tournament held in the province. Her steady play and flowing style quickly attracted the attention of the professional team, and soon after she was selected for the Hebei Provincial Table Tennis Team, and her championship dream began to set sail.
Enter the national team and show your edge
Hebei Province table tennis team is a glorious collective, here has walked out of Wang Zhiliang, Xi Enting and many other world champions, in such a team to receive training, Poplar's skills and style of progress is very obvious, here she and the famous Niu Jianfeng as a partner, and learned a lot of valuable experience, this period for the growth of Poplar has helped a lot.
Only three years later, Bai Yang was called up by the national team for outstanding performance and became a member of the table tennis national second team, she was even two years earlier than Wang Nan, who was selected for the country at the age of 15, which shows that Bai Yang's athletic talent is indeed beyond ordinary people, and her performance in the national team also proves that she was born to do table tennis materials.
In the second year of his selection for the national team, Bai Yang participated in the first table tennis world junior championships, and won the women's doubles and women's team championships all the way, and then won the silver medal in the women's singles. Her brilliant results made her famous overnight and was known as the "hope star of Chinese women's table tennis", and this year's Bai Yang was only 16 years old.
In the subsequent Swedish Open, Poplar once again teamed up with her teammates to win the women's doubles championship, it can be said that this year was the year when Poplar first appeared on the international stage, her performance was unanimously recognized by the coach of the team and the leadership of the General Bureau, and since then she has been designated as a key training target.
With the strong blessing of the team, Poplar's progress is more obvious.
In the 2000 National Championships, Bai Yang played her level normally, and finally stood on the highest podium of the women's singles competition again, and she defeated Zhang Yining, who was later known as the "big devil" in the final, and she was 1 year younger than Zhang Yining.
After that, Poplar was like driving a full horsepower train faster and faster, and her combination with Niu Jianfeng won almost all the women's doubles championships in the next two years, and according to this trend, her first world singles title was bound to be in the bag, and just when people were looking forward to this day, an accident happened.
Committed crimes against the wind and was expelled from the team
The 2003 World Table Tennis Championships were held in Paris, France, as the absolute main force of the Chinese team, Bai Yang participated in the mixed doubles competition. She and Liu Guozheng paired up all the way, and finally met another Chinese player Ma Lin and Wang Nan in the final, which was a battle of Tianwang Mountain, but no one expected that this competition would trigger an earthquake in the Chinese table tennis world.
The progress of the game was very intense, the two sides came and went, the scene was exciting, and because of the difficulty of strength, the game was also dragged into a tie-for-seven game. It may be that Bai Yang wanted her first mixed doubles title too much, played too tense in the tiebreaker, and unfortunately lost the match.
When Ma Lin and Wang Nan celebrated the victory of the game, Bai Yang could no longer control it, and her natural crying nature made her suddenly squat on the ground and cry, and this scene happened to be captured by the camera lens, and the commentators outside the venue said without thinking after seeing it: "Ma Lin is also uneasy about the object."
A stone stirred up a thousand waves, and then people realized that Marlene and Poplar were lovers. And at that time, Ma Lin seemed to hear the understanding, really ran over to try to soothe the crying pear blossom with rain poplar, next to Liu Guozheng naturally knew the stakes, so he wanted to stop Ma Lin, but it was too late.
The scene of Ma Lin comforting Bai Yang spread all over the country through the TV screen, and people were discussing how Ma Lin was "righteous and exterminated", but they did not know that they had touched the house rules of Guoping.
Cai Zhenhua, who was the head coach of the national team at the time, has always been strict in managing the army, especially in terms of life style. At that time, the national team had an unwritten rule that forbade male and female players to treat each other. Especially on the eve of the Athens Olympics, athletes must not be allowed to have any selfish thoughts.
In 2003, Poplar was only 19 years old, it was Tao Li Nianhua, with a beautiful face and a height of 1 meter 7, which made Poplar stand out in the talented national team, and many members of the men's team were unconsciously willing to look at Poplar more, and Ma Lin was the first to fall in love with Poplar secretly.
Falling in love in the national team cannot be made public, and as Cai Zhenhua worries, the love behavior of the two has indeed affected their technical play. During that time, not only their performance in the competition was not as good as before, but even their usual training level also declined.
The keen Cai Zhenhua has been aware of the problems presented by the two, but has not been able to find the cause of the problem, and Ma Lin's performance at the World Championships and the unintentional leakage of commentators have confirmed people's speculation, and the relationship between Bai Yang and Ma Lin has also surfaced.
Afterwards, Cai Zhenhua once called the two to the office to understand the situation, also hoping to give the two a chance. But the stubborn Poplar said: "Marlene and I really love each other", which is equivalent to self-judgment.
In order to maintain discipline and ensure that Ma Lin, the most guaranteed gold point for the Chinese team, Cai Zhenhua decided to kill a hundred people.
In May 2004, just a few months before the opening of the Athens Olympics, Cai Zhenhua announced that Bai Yang was expelled from the national team and returned to the place, and Li Nan and other three people were returned with her, all because of illegal internal love, the news immediately attracted attention from the outside world once the news was exposed by the media, and many people felt sorry and unfair for Bai Yang.
Refuse temptation and retire from the army
20-year-old Bai Yang packed his bags and returned to the parent team, years of hard work came to naught, in the face of the cold eyes of his teammates, in the face of public opinion, Poplar was not discouraged, she decided to set sail again with vigorous spirit, just start over from the place where her dream began, she believes that she will return to the national team with her own strength.
However, things are not as simple as she imagined, the training of top athletes is continuous, any interruption may cause a decline in state, if you can not adjust the state in time, it is likely to fall silent, and Poplar happens to be the unfortunate person.
After returning to training, Poplar was slow to find her form, and the gap between the local team and the national team in training also made it difficult for her to regain her past feelings.
In a very ordinary invitational tournament, she actually lost to an unknown Japanese player, which also hit Bai Yang's self-confidence.
But over the years, she has cultivated the spirit of Bai Yang not admitting defeat, and she also relied on this perseverance to quickly kill back.
In an open tournament held that year, Bai Yang and Guo Yan partnered in women's doubles, and finally reached the semifinals, facing Wang Nan and Zhang Yining, and lost seven sets hard.
At this time, Bai Yang found that the current national team has changed, and the defeated Zhang Yining has become a world champion, and his former lover Ma Lin has also won the Athens Olympics.
Such a national team is both familiar and unfamiliar, Bai Yang has no choice, she can only choose to catch up, catch up, but helplessly the competition of the Chinese national team is too fierce, a small fall may be fatal, because there are too many rising stars, Liu Shiwen, Guo Yue and others The appearance of Liu Shiwen, Guo Yue and others completely squeezed out the living space of Poplar.
In 2007, Poplar, who had no place on the national team, was sent to play for a club in Croatia and became one of the many "overseas legions", which was a low point in Poplar's life, and Poplar, who was alone abroad and had no relatives, could only play to relieve homesickness, but also honed her indomitable will.
It was also during this time that the Japan Table Tennis Association issued an olive branch to Poplar, invited Poplar to play in Japan and offered a sky-high salary, and even promised Poplar to represent Japan in the Olympic Games held in Beijing, which is undoubtedly extremely tempting and the ultimate goal for which Poplar has been fighting for many years.
To be fair, if Bai Yang had agreed to the invitation of the Japanese side at that time, not only could she get a high salary, but with her physical condition at that time, as long as she was trained scientifically and systematically, it would not be difficult to stand on the podium of the Olympic Games on behalf of Japan, at least her dream of participating in the Olympic Games could be fulfilled.
But Bai Yang still refused the invitation of the Japanese side, she knew that all the achievements she had achieved were the result of national training, from sports schools to national teams, how many people poured sweat for themselves, how much money was spent on themselves, representing the Japanese in the Olympic Games in Beijing is their own shame, shame on China.
Bai Yang's choice amazed countless Singaporeans, and she returned to China after a year.
In 2009, she and her old partner Niu Jianfeng combined their swords again to win a bronze medal in women's doubles for Hebei team at the National Games, and then Bai Yang announced her retirement and reluctantly left the table tennis arena she had fought for for 20 years.
After retiring, Bai Yang thought about going to school, but because she had not won the women's singles world championship, she was turned away and thought about being a match commentator, but she is obviously not suitable for her introverted and not good at words.
Just as Bai Yang was thinking about his future, a chance opportunity came quietly, and in 2010, Bai Yang was admitted to the Armed Police Physical Engineering Brigade and became a glorious armed police soldier.
For the life of the army, Bai Yang is no stranger, when he was in the national team, he was often pulled into the army for military training, and the life of athletes is not at all more comfortable than the army, which makes Poplar quickly adapt to the rhythm of the troops, and she has grown from an ordinary soldier to a colonel staff officer of the armed police physical engineering brigade through her unremitting efforts.
In 2021, 38-year-old Bai Yang ushered in a happy moment in her life, she married a businessman, and soon gave birth to a lovely baby, and the family lived happily together, occasionally reminiscing about some past, but more often imagining a better tomorrow.
Today's Bai Yang has long been far away from the table tennis court, but her story is very representative of thousands of athletes in the mainland, most of them have been engaged in professional sports training since childhood, and they have given up a lot for the honor of the motherland, but for various reasons, there are very few who can finally achieve results, and it is rare to win Olympic championships.
More people will choose to retire and live a dull life like Poplar, but they also have a heart to fight hard and have the same sense of honor of the supremacy of the motherland, and sincerely hope that everyone will see the athletes again, when they win gold and silver in the Olympic Games, do not forget the contributions made by the former Poplars to the motherland.