The Chinese women's volleyball team has been in the past 20 years|From Chen Zhonghe to Lang Ping to Cai Bin, the spirit of women's volleyball has never been just a champion

In 2003, the Chinese women's volleyball team, which won the World Women's Volleyball Grand Prix for two consecutive years, finally won the championship. It was also the only time that the Chinese women's volleyball team won the Grand Prix.

The World Women's Volleyball Grand Prix is the predecessor of the World Women's Volleyball League, that year, the coach of the Chinese women's volleyball team was Chen Zhonghe, behind him, Feng Kun, Zhao Ruirui, Yang Hao, Zhou Suhong, Liu Yanan, Zhang Na and other famous players - in the finals, the Chinese team defeated the United States, South Korea, Russia 3-0, defeated Italy and the Netherlands 3-1, and won the championship with five victories.

20 years later, the Chinese women's volleyball team led by Cai Bin reached the final of the World Women's Volleyball League. Although he failed to win the championship, he still created the best record in history.

In the past 20 years, the women's volleyball team has gone through many coaches, and the names of many team members have been left. The Chinese women's volleyball team has stopped at the peak of the peak and looked at the depths of the trough, but no matter where they are, the spirit of the women's volleyball team always has a magical power, sheltering generations of women's volleyball teams, constantly striving forward and never giving up.

Chen Zhonghe: The sun is always after the storm, and the "best sparring" creates a golden generation

2003 was Chen Zhonghe's third year as the coach of the women's volleyball team.

That year, the most unknown coach, with the title of "best sparring partner and best deputy", finally waited for the fruits of victory. With the gradual maturity of the young players Feng Kun, Zhao Ruirui, Yang Hao and other players who boldly used in the previous two years, the Chinese women's volleyball team began to usher in the peak period - this year, first in August, Italy won the World Women's Volleyball Grand Prix for the first time; Then in the Women's Volleyball World Cup in November, she won all 11 games and won the three major women's volleyball competitions again after 17 years...

At the Athens Olympics the following year, under the unfavorable situation of the injury of the main player Zhao Ruirui, the tenacious Chinese women's volleyball team beat Japan and Cuba all the way to the final, and when trailing 0-2 in the final, they won three consecutive games, staging the greatest reversal in the history of the Olympic Games. After 20 years, the Chinese women's volleyball team won gold in the Olympic women's volleyball competition for the second time since winning the championship in Los Angeles in 1984.

When the final whistle sounded, Chen Zhonghe, who has always been calm and reserved, likes to smile, ran into the field and hugged the players, laughing and crying, and couldn't stop. While waiting to receive the award, he and the team leader went to the door to smoke, unable to speak excitedly, their hands trembled so badly that they couldn't light a cigarette.

It was another dazzling era after the Chinese women's volleyball team, which won five consecutive championships in the eighties, and was silent for many years.

Most people did not expect such a result, after all, one is not a famous coach, and even has no coaching experience as a national team coach, the athlete was only a substitute for the Fujian men's volleyball team at its peak, Chen Zhonghe, who was a companion to the women's volleyball team, plus a number of young players, the Chinese women's volleyball team that was almost changed by him, seems to be with the world champion, it seems that it is not related to returning to glory at all.

But Chen Zhonghe did it. As a first-hand witness of the rise and fall of the Chinese women's volleyball team in the past 20 years, he knows where every problem comes from, and he also knows where the glory of that year comes from.

So, he decided to take the women's volleyball team and practice hard.

He formulated the new "National Women's Volleyball Management Rules", which the players called the "27 Catch-Rules", which looks extremely strict: including mobile phones cannot be brought into the training gym, lunch breaks and must be turned off after 10 pm; Do not eat partially, picky eaters, blindly lose weight; Must be strictly punctual, deduct 100 yuan for the monthly training fee for every minute of delay...

This is not an easy task. Because the players after 80 years are the first generation of only children in China, they are different from the old women's volleyball team. And Chen Zhonghe, who used to be a sparring partner of the women's volleyball team, will take out the video of Yuan Weimin's period to show the women's volleyball team how the old women's volleyball team trains in the bamboo shed and how to crawl on the three-in-one soil.

"In the eight years I was a coach, all the training camps added up to a full day off, which was the Spring Festival in 2008. Other times, it is up to half a day, and you have to practice in the evening. ”

Of course, the team also lost a lot of games in those years. At that time, Chen Zhonghe comforted the team members: "Don't be discouraged if the strong team loses to the weak team, the eagle sometimes flies lower than the chicken, but the chicken can never exceed the height of the eagle." He always smiled gently and unloaded all the baggage on the women's volleyball team and let them travel light.

 Therefore, inheriting the fighting spirit of the old women's volleyball team, under the leadership of Chen Zhonghe, the girls led by Feng Kun and Zhao Ruirui created a story of their own, and since then they have also had a shining title: "Golden Generation".

Lang Ping: After taking office for the country, "Iron Hammer" accompanied the women's volleyball team to fight for another eight years

"Do your best, do your best, and be worthy of your heart."

On the first day of September 2021, Lang Ping issued a long article and officially announced his departure as the head coach of the Chinese women's volleyball team. In evaluating her eight years as the Chinese women's volleyball team for the second time, she used the above 12 words.

Back in 2013, Chen Zhonghe has been the head coach of the women's volleyball team for four years, Cai Bin, Wang Baoquan, and Yu Juemin have successively stayed in the coach position, but the effect is hardly satisfactory. The year before, the Chinese women's volleyball team broke at the London Olympics and lost to Japan, Thailand and South Korea in the Asian Championships, finishing fourth in 38 years. This is an impossible fact to accept in the eyes of many people, and some people even lament that the women's volleyball team that once made us proud is over.

That is, in April of that year, Lang Ping received a call from Yuan Weimin, hoping that she could take up the burden of the women's volleyball team: "We Chinese women's volleyball team don't have to hire a foreign coach, right?" ”

Lang Ping agreed. As a member of the old women's volleyball team, she is called "iron hammer", naturally knowing that this team is carrying not only winning and champions, but also the expectations of the people. Chinese women's volleyball, these four words, for many people, already have a meaning beyond sports.

She began to form a new national team. In her words, it's like "puzzle pieces." Zhu Ting was favored by her that year, when she was only a member of the Henan second team, and team leader Lai Yawen had not even heard of this name. More players who were not favored were pulled into the national team by Lang Ping.

In May 2013, the newly formed national team trained for the first time. Lang Ping's meeting gift to the girls was a detailed questionnaire: talk about your personality characteristics, technical characteristics, what the goals of the national team should be in the Rio cycle, and what help do you want the coach to give you... She observed each strange team member and hoped to quickly understand and read them in this way.

Under the concept of "big national team", she recruited players everywhere and taught this group of young people hand-in-hand, whether it was the action of smashing the ball, or the awareness of passing, and the instigation of running... Lang Ping endured back injuries and leg injuries, and gave time to this group of children, picking the most basic movements little by little.

Of course, there are also doubts: there are still three years before the Olympics, and now it is still training from the basics, will it be too late? Also, in addition to the training of the desperate three langs in the past, Lang Ping has given the spirit of the women's volleyball team a new era meaning such as science, professionalism and internationalization.

She often tells the team members to "read the game" - to read the opponent's intentions and cooperate in advance: "High-level athletes are not shouted, they must have high intelligence, analysis and reading ability." It is impossible for a coach to do all your moves on the court. ”

In the end, the results speak for themselves:

In the 2014 World Championships, Lang Ping led the team to win the runner-up; In the 2015 World Cup, the women's volleyball team won the championship of the three major competitions again after 11 years; At the 2016 Rio Olympics, she led a group of team members with an average age of only 24 years old all the way to the championship podium. During the 16 days in Rio, Lang Ping couldn't sleep most nights and lost 14 pounds.

After that, Lang Ping led the women's volleyball team to 11 consecutive World Cup wins in 19 years and won the 10th world championship. After that, the Tokyo Olympics team was out...

From players to coaches, through ups and downs for decades, Lang Ping burned himself for the Chinese women's volleyball team. And in the past eight years, I have taken the women's volleyball team for another generation and tasted the taste of the peak. Summing up the journey, Lang Ping said, "This road has not been easy, but because I love it, I feel very satisfied and happy. ”

This sixty-year-old man who is injured all over his body and has a disability certificate, his explanation of the "women's volleyball spirit" has made countless people cry:

"The spirit of women's volleyball is not to win championships, but to sometimes know that you will not win and do your best. It is you who walk shakily all the way, but stand up and shake the dust on your body, and still have a firm look in your eyes. Life is not necessarily to win, but to strive to win. ”

Lang Ping himself is the best practitioner of this passage.

 Women's volleyball in the past 20 years: no matter the peaks and lows, the spirit of women's volleyball has always shone

From 2003 to 2023, from the best record of the Women's World Volleyball Grand Prix to the best record of the Women's World Volleyball League - a full 20 years, it seems like a cycle.

During this period, the women's volleyball team experienced a peak, Chen Zhonghe and Lang Ping led the team, won the Olympic championship twice, and several three major championships. Of course, it has also experienced a trough, the turbulent years between Chen Zhonghe and Lang Ping's coaching, and the two years since Lang Ping stepped down and Cai Bin took office, the Chinese women's volleyball team encountered many doubts and problems.

This team, since the eighties, has more expectations than other teams.

In the past twenty years, not only Chen Zhonghe, Lang Ping, Cai Bin, Feng Kun, Zhu Ting, Yuan Xinyue... All the coaches, staff and players of the women's volleyball team are practicing their understanding of the "women's volleyball spirit" with their own efforts.

Whether it is Chen Zhonghe's continuation of the fighting spirit of the old women's volleyball team, or Lang Ping's broadening of the core of the women's volleyball spirit with a more scientific and global vision, or Cai Bin's "strict and loose" for the women's volleyball team in difficult times... In fact, it is a multi-dimensional display of the spirit of women's volleyball.

More than 40 years ago, the women's volleyball team proved to the world that "Chinese can do it", and behind the crowd of people looking at the women's volleyball team is the yearning of "uniting and revitalizing China". At the beginning of the reform and opening up, China struggled to catch up, and the women's volleyball team made countless Chinese people rejoice, like a banner, to see what height collectivism, patriotism and self-improvement will can reach and what kind of miracle can be created;

Now, after many years of accumulation, the spirit of women's volleyball in the new era has more meaning: the motherland is supreme, unity and cooperation, tenacious struggle, and never say die. The power of this example inspires each of us to fight tenaciously to get out of the difficulties in real life and realize our ideals in the pursuit of excellence.

We, as witnesses of the ups and downs of the past two decades, are so fortunate: no matter the peaks and valleys, adversity and good times, the spirit of women's volleyball will never be just a champion.