Experience丨After the 80s, the front wave has become the ceiling of China's sports arena is difficult to surpass, should the back wave be anxious?
Written by 丨 Horsen
Editor丨 Feng Xiao
When Yi Jianlian announced, only Su Bingtian was left among the post-80s celebrities in Chinese sports.
We all know that an era will pass and a new era will come. But there is a question, in the next era, can the back wave catch up with the previous wave? Today, the post-90s and post-00s have become the de facto backbone of Chinese sports.
However, looking back on the past one or two decades, you will find that the post-80s celebrities in Chinese sports have created unprecedented achievements, which can be called the strongest in history, and there are not many opportunities left for future generations. However, we must also admit that behind the success of the post-80s generation of athletes is a single-dimensional gold-medal theory or performance-only theory, and the post-90s generation is destined not to be anxious about this. Their mission is broader than that.
Caption: Yao Ming and Liu Xiang are the most well-known figures among the post-80s stars in Chinese sports.
01 The post-80s generation of Chinese sports cast brilliantly
First of all, in the past 20 years, even the most well-known superstar in the history of New China, if you can only name one name, who will you choose?
Without a doubt, Yao Ming.
Although he failed to help the Chinese men's basketball team go further in the World Series, he was the first Chinese player to shine in the NBA, and his modesty, low-key, hard work and even humor have turned into a bridge between China and the world, and the only Chinese player selected in the FIBA Hall of Fame is enough to show his unparalleled international influence.
Or the same question, after excluding Yao Ming, who will be the next name?
Liu Xiang, of course.
He is the world record holder in the 110m hurdles, he is an Olympic champion, a world champion and an indoor world champion, and he is the pride of the yellow race.
Next, we may also be able to list the "Su God" Su Bingtian, who is also the pride of the yellow race; Ma Long and Lin Dan, who are each leading by a large gap in table tennis and badminton, and even almost difficult for future generations to surpass; Li Na, who won the singles event for the first time at a tennis Grand Slam; Olympic hardware kings Zou Kai (gymnastics) and Wu Minxia (diving); Zhang Yining, the world's invincible female table tennis devil, and the equally invincible badminton men's doubles duo Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng; China's first snooker champion Ding Junhui; China's first boxing Olympic champion, Zou Shiming; China's first men's fencing Olympic champion, Zhong Man...
The only thing these great athletes have in common is that they are all post-80s.
The brilliance they forged has left such a strong mark on the Chinese sports scene that if you want to select the best athletes in the 70-year history of new Chinese sports, it is almost difficult to bypass the star-studded names above.
To put it bluntly, the post-80s generation is likely to be the most important group in the domestic sports scene so far, although other generations of athletes also have leaders beyond the times, such as Rong Guotuan, Xu Haifeng, Li Ning, Gao Min, Zhu Ting, Sun Yang, Ding Ning, etc., but both in quantity and quality, they are obviously slightly inferior to the post-80s group.
Caption: Su Bingtian is still active among the post-80s sports celebrities.
02 The wave of the times gives the important task of inheriting the past and the future
So, what is the reason for the brilliance of the post-80s generation in Chinese sports? Perhaps because of the drastic changes of the times.
After the 80s, China began to embark on the broad road of reform and opening up, in the first ten years, poverty and chaos, and in the next ten years, embracing the world. It can be said that the post-80s generation is the most experienced generation group in New China, they were born in the early stage of reform and development, and witnessed China's gradual growth from an agricultural country to the second pole of the world today, and the new things they have come into contact with in the process of growing up for more than ten years have almost completely spanned the history of human development in the past hundred years.
If we want to not be eliminated in this rapid wave of the times, we can only constantly seek new and change.
At the same time, the afterglow of the national system has not completely dissipated in the process of growth of the post-80s, under the polishing of the 50s, 60s and 70s, although the mature and complete national system has shortcomings such as lack of subjective initiative, inhibition of individual creativity of athletes, rigidity of administrative means, etc., but its strong discipline and personnel arrangement and scheduling ensure the lower limit of the quality of sports talents.
Therefore, the athletes of the post-80s generation generally have the will quality of the older generation of athletes to work hard, fight tenaciously and train hard, and at the same time, because they have touched the wave of the new era, benefiting from the scientific and systematic training mode and continuous improvement of medical conditions, they can carry on the past and the future, and embrace the strengths of the old and the new, and have become a unique special group.
A very typical example is Su Bingtian.
Born in the late 80s, he was discovered by the sports school coach in the second year of junior high school because of the brilliant shine of the school games, and then was selected for the provincial team and the national team, although he trained hard, but he could not break the 10-second mark.
After competing with Usain Bolt at the 2012 London Olympics, Su Bingtian ignited the fighting spirit to pursue the limit, and after training several times in the United States, he resolutely decided to change his starting posture and landing point steps, smash all his past skills, and start over.
At this time, he was 25 years old.
Relying on the will of steel, three years later, Su Bingtian buckled the 10-second mark, and then Su Bingtian continued to surpass himself until the Tokyo Olympics, and the "old" he wrote a new history of 100-meter dashing with 9.85 seconds, becoming China's pride.
"Almost masochistic hard work and self-discipline" + "new scientific training concept" has achieved not only "Su Shen", but also Lin Dan and Ma Long.
Caption: The Chinese men's basketball team, which is mainly the post-90s generation, performed weakly in this World Cup.
03 The brilliance of the post-80s generation is difficult to surpass
The achievements made by post-80s athletes for Chinese sports may be difficult to surpass in a short period of time.
In addition to the fact that the achievements of the post-80s generation are so brilliant that there are fewer and more difficult areas for the next generation to expand their territory, more importantly, the tide of the times has passed.
At the end of the 90s, China's economy began to enter the golden age of ultra-high-speed development, followed by more deepening and detailed, market-oriented reforms in various fields, and in the wave of urbanization, the old community ecological environment was completely disintegrated, and new urban communities were in the ascendant.
Submission to the grand narrative of the collective is no longer encouraged, extreme self-sacrifice is no longer encouraged, and even dares to slap the table for their own interests.
Li Na, Wang Zhizhi, Ning Zetao... When there are more and more "outliers" in the system, the past sports talent selection mechanism finally raised its head in the trembling of feeling the stones to cross the river, and there was no way back, and it was vast.
Perhaps marketization and professionalization are not a panacea for all diseases, but once the transformation of the system has begun, there is no turning back.
Continued poverty alleviation and low higher education costs have brought more diversified life choices, which is undoubtedly a good thing for overall social welfare, but for the national education system, it is a devastating destruction that shakes and excavates the foundation. The old talent selection mechanism has been destroyed, but it will take time to establish a new talent selection system based entirely on market-oriented reforms.
Therefore, we will see that after twenty years of sports professional reform, many projects such as football and basketball have been "disconnected" in the post-90s generation, and there are faint signs of standing still or even regressing.
In the just-concluded men's basketball World Cup group stage, the Chinese men's basketball team lost all three games, and everyone could not help but lament where Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian were in the new era; At the Badminton World Championships, the Chinese team only won a gold medal in women's doubles, which made everyone very unaccustomed; The sonorous rose, which has always been loved by the Chinese people, also fell into the sand in the Women's World Cup; The Chinese men's football team, after many trials and errors, fell towards the abyss, leaving the old fans alone and silently sighing about the good times of 02.
Times have changed.
04 The new generation of athletes does not need to be forcibly "taken over"
But that doesn't mean that the athletes of the new era have to be bound by the glory built by their predecessors.
It is true that Yao Ming, Liu Xiang, Lin Dan, Li Na and Ma Long are geniuses that have been rare for decades, they have enjoyed the dividends of the times, and they have fully realized their talents, and it is an extremely difficult thing to surpass them.
However, since you have chosen the path of marketization and professionalism, there is no need to look back, no matter how glorious the past is only the past, life always has to focus on the future, after learning to let go slowly, the self-regulation of the market will always bring a new way out.
Sun Yang is certainly high in the mountains, but now we also have Qin Haiyang in our pool.
Li Na is certainly amazing, but Zhang Zhizhen has just defeated the top 5 players in the US Open, achieving a new breakthrough in Chinese tennis.
Zhang Boheng (gymnastics), Sun Yingsha (table tennis), Quan Hongchan (diving), Hu Mingxuan (basketball), these names represent the future of Chinese sports, and before the dust settles, who dares to say that there will be no "GOAT" among them?
More importantly, on the new road of modern sports, there will naturally be a new generation of athletes, who are free-spirited, they are unbridled, and they have outstanding personalities.
From the unexpected popularity of Fu Yuanhui, a young girl in the flood wilderness, to Yang Qian who pinned the little yellow duck hair card, to Wu Yanni, who lived her true self, the audience gradually began to let go of their demands for results, and turned to look at these new era athletes full of personality with more open eyes and a more inclusive mind.
You don't have to have a championship and a gold medal, and that's good.