At first sight, it is also shocking for a long time, and "attention" builds a bridge to communicate with history, so that words can enliven reality.
"I want to cultivate 100 Chinese badminton world champions!" This is Li Yongbo's bold statement in 1993, when he first became a Chinese badminton coach.
At that time, many of the veteran players in the national badminton were about to retire, and the younger ones who succeeded them had not yet fully grown, and it can be said that the national badminton at this time was in the trough of youth and yellow.
It can be seen from this that Li Yongbo's words will definitely be considered "shameless", but throughout his entire coaching career, Li Yongbo is a well-deserved meritorious coach of Chinese badminton.
instructor
In the impression of many people, coaches are very "fierce" and "cruel", because they always train the players to suffer for days.
However, "the so-called one minute on stage, ten years of merit offstage", the cruelty of competitive sports, is not inferior to the college entrance examination, which is like thousands of troops crossing a single wooden bridge.
Perhaps one point in the college entrance examination can be a difference of more than a hundred thousand people, but in competitive sports, even a few tenths of a second can determine a person's efforts for a year or even a lifetime.
It is said that human potential is infinite, but how much can be developed depends on their own efforts, and the coach may become the "evil person" who holds the key to open the door.
In Li Yongbo's 24-year coaching career, he has given almost everything he can, and the players are desperate on the "battlefield", and Li Yongbo is the one who works hard offstage.
If the players win, everyone is happy, but if they lose, Li Yongbo will always be the one who blames himself the most, and then he will repeatedly crush and analyze the shortcomings shown by the players, as well as the advantages and weaknesses of both sides, so as to find the road to ultimate success.
It can be said that with Li Yongbo's "sacrifice of life" to achieve the success of the players, even Guoyu, who was at a low point, turned over abruptly under his leadership.
And Li Yongbo's approach will undoubtedly greatly increase the momentum of the Chinese people, but it is very harmful to his own body.
Since Li Yongbo took over, a black cape has become his hallmark, and he wears a favorite cap, no matter the occasion.
In 2021, Li Yongbo's proud disciple Wang Jiaming held a wedding, but because it was a special period at that time, Li Yongbo, as a master, could not be present to congratulate him, but he personally recorded a blessing video for his disciples to show his heart.
In the video, although 59-year-old Li Yongbo is still wearing a cap, it is not difficult to see from the hair drilled out of his sideburns that his hair has turned gray.
Moreover, at this time, Li Yongbo has already relieved himself of the heavy responsibility of Guoyu coach, which has also made his mind relax unprecedentedly, so this demon king who once commanded the badminton altar cannot escape the fate of blessing.
On the other hand, Li Yongbo's son Li Gen, perhaps because of his father's influence, he also embarked on the road of badminton player.
But it's a pity that although Li Gen has also won some domestic awards, he has not been able to shine on the world stage, which has become the only regret of Li Yongbo's family.
Although Li Gen failed to achieve dazzling results on the road of athletes, he founded his own sports company after retiring and became the chairman position that others have been unable to reach in their entire lives.
Interestingly, Li Gen's company name is "LYB", which is an abbreviation of his father's name, and his intention is obvious, Li Gen hopes to use his father's reputation to develop the company, but this is also undoubtedly a thing, because they are originally a family.
Until then, Li Yongbo had been spending his energy on badminton, so he could be said to know nothing about business, and Li Gen's ability to take a new path was also a way for his retired father.
Later, Li Yongbo also founded the "Li Yongbo International Badminton Club" and the "LYB Li Yongbo Amateur Badminton Tournament" named after him.
Father and son helped each other and worked together to take their careers to new heights.
It can be seen from this that whether it is Li Yongbo's coaching career or his career after retirement, it can be described as perfect.
But as the saying goes, "the workplace is proud, the love field is disappointed", since Li Yongbo's career is smooth, his feelings will have twists and turns.
But "the most infuriating thing is", Li Yongbo's life seems to be open, career and feelings.
Li Yongbo
Li Yongbo was born in Dalian, Liaoning Province in 1962, but when he was a child, his best thing was not sports, but singing.
Li Yongbo's family conditions are quite good, so his parents intend to train him to become a professional singer.
As Li Yongbo grew up, his singing talent was undoubtedly revealed, but at the same time, the athletic talent hidden in his genes was also rushing to be expressed.
Hoping for a son to become a dragon is every parent's heartfelt wish, but Li Yongbo's excellence makes parents happy and a little worried at the same time.
Because developing two majors at the same time will not only make Li Yongbo very stressed, but also likely to lead to the lack of proficiency in both majors in the end.
At that time, Li Yongbo was still young, and his parents wanted him to choose his future life path by himself, so all they could do now was wait and see what happened, and then wait for the opportunity to come.
When Li Yongbo was a teenager, the opportunity that the family had been waiting for finally came, when the choice of actors and badminton players was placed in front of Li Yongbo's family.
In fact, they are more inclined to singing actors, but this place of work is in Guangzhou, Dalian is in the north, and Guangzhou is in the south, and the distance between these two places spans most of the map.
Not to mention that Li Yongbo is still young, whether he can adapt to a life with huge differences is unknown, and parents must not worry about their son going so far away.
After weighing left and right, the family finally chose the "Liaoning badminton player" closer to home.
Maybe they just made the choice they made second, but they won't know that it will be the right thing they will do in their lives.
In this way, Li Yongbo came to the provincial badminton training team with his parents' advice.
Before this, although Li Yongbo had achieved some results, he was still a little underseen in front of the provincial team, so he also suffered a lot of setbacks when he first arrived.
The first is the training intensity, in the past, Li Yongbo was a number of developments, and there was not a lot of time to train badminton, so the training intensity of the provincial team made it difficult for him to support it if he had not fully adapted to the environment.
Then there is the relationship with the old people in the team, the principle of competitive sports is simple and rude, that is, success and defeat, if you have strength, you have absolute right to speak, which is obviously what Li Yongbo in the novice period cannot have.
Fortunately, Li Yongbo's heart is very strong, he showed 100% motivation in training, other team members trained Li Yongbo to train, and others rested He was still training.
In short, before he played, Li Yongbo's life was basically spent in training except for eating, sleeping, and going to the toilet.
The so-called effort may not be successful, but there will be gains, Li Yongbo's hard work has also allowed him to gradually gain a foothold in the team, and at the same time he also met his best partner "Tian Bingyi".
After a long period of running-in, the duo of Li Yongbo and Tian Bingyi broke out with amazing combat power and achieved very good results, and they were also known as "golden partners".
But what really made the two famous was the 1987 World Championships, which won the men's doubles championship of the World Championships with their seamless cooperation, and since then their combination has been like a wild horse out of control.
But there is no such thing as a banquet, and in 1992, the golden pair won the bronze medal in men's doubles at that year's Olympic Games.
At this time, Li Yongbo was 30 years old, although he was still very young, but he was already old in the sports industry, so after participating in the 1992 Olympic Games, Li Yongbo announced his retirement, and his golden combination with Tian Bingyi was disbanded.
Although the group dispersed, the story belonging to Li Yongbo is far from over.
100 championships
Throughout Li Yongbo's 14-year sports career, he has won a total of 37 championship titles, including 6 world championships, it can be said that Li Yongbo has added a strong color to the mainland badminton scene, so he began his coaching career in the second year after his retirement.
The teammates who were with Li Yongbo at that time were all about the same age as him, and Li Yongbo retired from the game, which means that others have also entered the countdown to their careers.
But the strength of the new generation has not yet grown up and cannot provoke the main beam, so the national badminton at that time was in an empty period of green and yellow, which also led to the mainland's failure to achieve good results in badminton events in 1993.
The low mood caused by failure surrounds every athlete's head, and in order to sweep away the haze and regain his strength, Li Yongbo, who has won the championship many times, took over the burden of coaching.
This is the opening sentence: "I want to cultivate 100 Chinese badminton world champions!" ”
If someone else said this, it would definitely be considered whimsical, but Li Yongbo would not, because his past honor gave him full confidence.
Although Li Yongbo's playing strength is very strong, after all, this is his first time as a coach, and he has also changed from playing in battle to becoming a core conductor, and the nature of these two starting points is completely different.
But Li Yongbo did not flinch, more than ten years of sports career has already honed his heart incomparably tenacious, although there is not too much coaching experience, but diligence to make up for the poor is the most direct truth.
At that time, Li Yongbo's training principle was "as long as you don't die, you will practice in death!" "But people are flesh and blood after all, and Li Yongbo's almost devilish training has also made many team members complain.
During that low period, the players basically did not have the concept of rest, and although Li Yongbo did not have to participate in training as a coach, his task was not easy.
He needs to know the strengths and weaknesses of each team member very well and find more effective training methods for them, so every late night, when the team members are lying in bed and sleeping, Li Yongbo will always watch the video tape over and over again, and even sit all night.
Through the unremitting efforts of Li Yongbo and his players, Guoyu's performance has been substantially improved, and in 1995, Chinese badminton won the Sudirman Cup, and won this award in 1997 and 1999.
In addition, in 1996, Ge Fei and Gu Jun won the women's doubles gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics, which was also the first Olympic gold medal in Chinese badminton.
It can be said that Guoyu can climb out of the trough, it is inseparable from the sweat and hard work of each team member, but it is also inseparable from Li Yongbo's hard work.
The so-called difficult beginning, Li Yongbo led the team out of the muddy road, the road behind will be relatively easy, so in the following years, Guoyu won gold medals in various events many times, and Li Yongbo also jumped from prime to middle age.
When Li Yongbo first became a coach, he was only 30 years old, and he could still be friends with the players, but in a blink of an eye, he was almost at the age of becoming a grandfather, which shows that Li Yongbo's contribution to the badminton world is "unprecedented and unexpected".
retire
In 2017, the 55-year-old Li Yongbo stepped down as China's head badminton coach, and although he failed to fulfill his original promise of 100 titles, he produced 92 titles.
And while everyone was thanking this great coach and player, Li Yongbo added all these honors to his wife.
In 1983, Li Yongbo met the love of his life, Xie Ying.
At that time, the badminton team and the gymnastics team in Liaoning were in the same training ground, and the coach used a board in the middle of the field to avoid the confusion of the young people, and strictly ordered the two teams not to cross the line.
But because Li Yongbo was already a national team athlete at this time, he did not often stay in the Liaoning team, and naturally did not know this regulation, so when he returned, he became curious in his heart and pushed open the door of the gymnastics team.
All that came into view were a group of fifteen or sixteen-year-old girls who came out of the pavilion, and at this time, they all looked at Li Yongbo at the door stunned.
Li Yongbo saw that there were all women and no men, and he suddenly realized that he had made a mistake, so he quickly fled in ashes, but what he didn't know was that there was a pair of eyes that had been looking at him, and these eyes were Xie Ying.
Li Yongbo's dormitory is on the first floor, and it is also the only way for Xie Ying to return to the dormitory, and after making a mistake that day, Li Yongbo stopped Xie Ying at the window.
In fact, Li Yongbo noticed Xie Ying during the day, but many people were embarrassed to talk at that time, so he took this opportunity to quickly ask Xie Ying some questions.
I learned from Xie Ying that she was only 15 years old, but Li Yongbo was not surprised, because there are many athletes of this age, and Li Yongbo used to be.
With this exchange, the relationship between the two seems to be closer, and then every day after the end of training, Li Yongbo will wait in front of the window, and Xie Ying will always appear at that point in time, and the two seem to have discussed it in advance.
As the number of contacts increased, the beauty of their emotions pushed each other one step further, so they began to train, eat and chat together.
When both go home, they will also bring each other something that the other likes, and the feelings of youth are like this without a trace of impurities.
After that, Li Yongbo needed to compete all over the world, and he had fewer opportunities to get along with Xie Ying, but neither of them gave up.
The two would basically write letters every week, confiding in each other their thoughts about each other, and they would talk for a long time after they had a phone call.
But in fact, Xie Ying is a very difficult woman to chase, because many people chased her before Li Yongbo appeared, but Xie Ying, who was high-spirited, did not see any of them.
It is not so much that Li Yongbo caught up with Xie Ying because of his handsomeness, but because of his excellence and sense of responsibility, so the two like-minded people may be able to go further.
In 1991, Li Yongbo was nearing the end of his athletic career, when he was recognized by Xie Ying's parents and successfully married him home.
The following year, Li Yongbo left the arena where he had been fighting for more than ten years, but he had another identity: father, because Li Gen was born.
After Li Yongbo became the coach, Xie Ying gave up everything he had and was willing to be the shield behind Li Yongbo.
Although Li Yongbo seemed strict to outsiders, only Xie Ying understood that Li Yongbo really gave everything he could.
Because in Li Yongbo's 24 years of coaching, his energy has been all focused on the players, so that he neglected his family, but Xie Ying never blamed Li Yongbo in the end, because she understood that what her husband did was for "everyone".
"Give up the small family for everyone", "you for everyone, I for the small family" Li Yongbo and his wife did not take these two sentences as slogans, and what they did was enough to call them great.
Today, Li Yongbo is also 61 years old, nearly seven years after he stepped down as head coach, and now he grows durian in Malaysia.
Although Li Yongbo is nearly old, it can be seen from the video of blessing his apprentice two years ago that the fierceness in his eyes is still not inferior to that year.