The retirement of the UAE has triggered a topic, the post-80s generation can be called the peak of sports, who else is the remaining boss besides Su Shen?
On August 29, basketball legend Yi Jianlian announced his retirement, and he chose to go into hiding, which means that there is one less post-80s legend on the domestic competitive sports stage. With the passage of time, the post-90s and post-00s have gradually become the dominant force in the arena in recent years, and the post-80s, who have contributed many great deeds in Chinese sports, have gradually disappeared from the arena.
Yi Jianlian's retirement can attract hundreds of millions of eyes, from the brilliance cast by the UAE in China's basketball scene, as well as the super influence of basketball itself. In the past decade or two, a large number of stars have shocked the sports world at home and abroad, including many epoch-making figures who have written history, and the protagonists of them are the post-80s.
So far, 4 national players have created the glory of winning hardware in the Olympic Games, 3 of them are post-80s: Zou Kai, Wu Minxia and Ma Long. Born in 1988, Zou Kai won three gold medals in men's gymnastics team, floor exercise and horizontal bar at the Beijing Olympics, replicating the miracle of Li Ning, the "prince of gymnastics" in the 1984 Olympic Games. Four years later, at the London Olympics, Zou Kai won two more golds, surpassing Deng Yaping, Fu Mingxia, Wang Nan, Guo Jingjing and other famous players, becoming the first hardware king in China's Olympic history. In 2016 and 2021, Wu Minxia and Ma Long, who were also born in the 80s of the last century, successively created the glory of the Olympic Five Crowns and continued to write the Olympic legend belonging to the post-80s.
Who is the most popular international superstar in Chinese sports ever? Yao. Yao Ming was born in 1980. Yao Ming does not have the status of the Olympic and World Championships, and in terms of international records, he is the Olympic Games, the World Championship quarterfinals and the Asian champion, but he is the first Chinese and even Asian basketball player to shine in the NBA. There is no need to repeat how much Yao Ming's international influence is, and the series of game statistics he left behind in the NBA prove that he is superb.
The Chinese athletes who caused a sensation in the international sports scene 10 years ago were not only Yao Ming, but also Liu Xiang and Li Na, who are also post-80s.
Like Yao Ming, Liu Xiang and Li Na are also super-first-class stars who write history. Liu Xiang, the first athlete in China and even Asia to reach the top of the world in the straight track event, is an Olympic champion, world champion, indoor world champion, and world record holder in the men's 110m hurdles, and he has been hailed as "textbook hurdles". Liu Xiang's hurdle skills are great, for example: if Liu Xiang is compared with the top hurdles in Europe and the United States by 100 meters, he is destined to be the last one, plus 10 hurdles, Liu Xiang will become a "flying man".
For quite some time, tennis was recognized as the world of Europeans and Americans, especially the singles events of the four major tournaments, and Asians could not touch it at all. Li Na's stand out brought this history to an end. In the early summer of 2011, Li Na won the French Open women's singles title, and in 2014, she stepped to the highest point of the Australian Open women's singles competition. These two achievements have made Li Na one of the few international big names in Chinese sports.
The post-80s generation who wrote a new record in Chinese sports is not only Yao Liu Li Sanxing, but also Lin Dan, Ding Junhui, Ma Long, Su Bingtian and other generals. Lin Dan is the first person recognized in the history of international badminton, Ding Junhui is the first Asian player to be the first to reach the first Asian player in the snooker world rankings, Guo Jingjing is the multi-gold king of domestic summer Olympic events, Zhang Yining is the female table tennis devil, Ma Long is the multi-gold king in the history of national table tennis, Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng is the most influential doubles combination in the history of Chinese badminton, Su Bingtian is the fastest yellow man in history, China's first boxing Olympic champion...
In fact, there are still a large number of people after the 80s who created the most important sports in China: Zhong Man, Tan Xue, Wang Lei, the three of them are the first men's Olympic champion in Chinese fencing, the first world championship champion, and the first world championship men's champion; Yang Wenjun, one of China's first Olympic champions in aquatic events; Zhang Lin, China's first men's world champion in swimming; The four sisters who won China's first Olympic championship in rowing: Tang Bin, Zhang Yangyang, Jin Ziwei and Xi Aihua, are also post-80s. In addition, the Chinese women's volleyball team has 36 people on the Olympic champion podium, of which 10 are post-80s, they are the largest group.
By the way, there is also a super first-class star who is not a world champion that cannot be missed, like Yao Ming, although he is not a world champion, but a "god", he is Su Bingtian, known as "Su Shen".
Writing here, the author came up with an idea, assuming that Yao Ming, Liu Xiang, Li Na, Lin Dan, Ma Long and Su Bingtian are extremely competitive, and the post-80s generation is likely to be the group with the highest starlight coefficient in domestic sports so far.
Scanning the 70-year history of Chinese sports, the post-80s generation is perhaps the most experienced group. They were born in the early days of China's reform and opening up, and they were exposed to new things in their formative years than their predecessors. As they fluttered their wings and galloped on the field, Chinese sports were attacking the first group in the Olympic arena. In the new century, a group of post-80s international experts have slowly emerged, helping the Chinese Legion successfully rank among the top three Olympic Games and helping the Chinese sports world to cross new heights on the road of professional sports.
At present, the only post-80s superstars in Chinese sports who stick to the arena are Ma Long, Su Bingtian and a few others, and there are all indications that they are likely to choose to retire after the 2024 Paris Olympics. The competitive sports time belonging to the post-80s generation is short and precious, and I wish Ma Long and Su Shen another legend and continue to write brilliant in the last days of their athletes' careers.
(Wang Quanli)