<< • Preface - • >>
He is not only the hero of China's successful Olympic bid, but also the culprit that led to the decline in the strength of China's table tennis and women's volleyball team.
This person is Wei Jizhong, the head of China's sports industry, who has made many outstanding contributions to Chinese sports, but now he is facing the end of the late festival and discredit, what did Wei Jizhong do to make everyone hate him so much.
<< - Wei Jizhong's domineering: Pulling seedlings helps make the national ball encounter Waterloo - · >>
In 2001, the Chinese women's volleyball team was at a low point. At this time, the Chinese Volleyball Association decided to hire foreign coach Chen Zhonghe, hoping that he could change the plight of the women's volleyball team.
Chen Zhonghe has a lot of experience in women's volleyball, and he led the Chinese women's volleyball team to win the 2004 Athens Olympic Games in just 3 years, returning to the top of the world.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, although the women's volleyball team won the bronze medal, the results were still good. However, this was publicly questioned by Wei Jizhong, vice president of the Chinese Volleyball Association, who bluntly said that Chen Zhonghe's coaching was too weak to lead the Chinese women's volleyball team to achieve good results.
According to reports, Wei Jizhong has criticized Chen Zhonghe's coaching ability on several public occasions, believing that Chen Zhonghe lacks understanding and control over athletes, and he has repeatedly made it clear that only his old subordinate Cai Bin can make the women's volleyball team progress rapidly. Faced with this situation, Chen Zhonghe chose to leave.
After Chen Zhonghe left the Chinese women's volleyball team, he continued to coach in Turkey and led the Turkish women's volleyball team to achieve excellent results. This speaks volumes about his coaching ability and dedication. However, Wei Jizhong did not see this and still believed that he did not have the ability to lead the team.
After Chen Zhonghe, Wei Jizhong got his wish and let Cai Bin take over the position of head coach of the women's volleyball team. However, Cai Bin's coaching level proved to be far from the requirements, and under his leadership, the Chinese women's volleyball team lagged behind the world's strong teams, and even lost at the 2012 London Olympics, losing to Thailand for the first time in history.
This defeat also made Wei Jizhong, who strongly recommended Cai Bin, lose face. According to reports, after the loss of the women's volleyball team, Wei Jizhong not only did not reflect on his decision-making errors, but instead put the blame on Cai Bin and the athletes, claiming that they did not implement the correct tactics. Under the pressure of public opinion, Cai Bin had to leave the national team voluntarily.
A similar situation has occurred with the Chinese table tennis team. Under the leadership of table tennis head coach Liu Guodong, the Chinese team has long occupied the world's first position. But Wei began to weaken Liu Guodong's power, openly criticizing him and pressuring him to leave.
According to rumors, Wei Jizhong has always regarded Liu Guodong as a thorn in his side, and has repeatedly made disparaging remarks about Liu Guodong in private. In desperation, Liu Guodong was forced to resign as head coach.
In the table tennis project, Wei Jizhong's domineering style was further manifested, he arbitrarily carried out "reform" of the table tennis team, resulting in fluctuations in the perennial table tennis results, at this time the team members persuaded Liu Guodong to return to continue teaching, but Wei Jizhong ignored it and allowed it to develop.
According to reports, Wei Jizhong did this mainly because Liu Guodong did not agree with his ideas and refused to implement some of his unreasonable demands. This move sparked discontent in the team, and many team members were angry with Wei Jizhong. Under pressure from all parties, Liu Guoliang was able to continue to serve as the head coach and turn the table tennis team around.
Many former coaches and athletes have reportedly suffered hardships from Wei Jizhong. His authoritarian style also almost caused China's two national sports to suffer Waterloo, but fortunately, under the pressure of public opinion, what he did was stopped.
Wei Jizhong's decisions have shown that he does not have the quality and judgment to be a sports leader in China, and some commentators have pointed out that the reason why Wei Jizhong has been able to control China's sports power for a long time is that he is good at forming parties for personal gain and cracking down on dissidents.
<< Wei Jizhong, who squeezed out Lang Ping, stepped into the abyss step by step -- >>
In 1995, Lang Ping, then the head coach of the US women's volleyball team, was invited to return to China from abroad to coach the Chinese women's volleyball team. At that time, Lang Ping was already a well-known women's volleyball superstar at home and abroad, and she spoke with strength, and led clubs in the United States and Italy to win various important leagues and championships many times.
At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Lang Ping gritted her teeth and led the Chinese women's volleyball team that was not connected by green and yellow all the way through the hurdles, and finally won the silver medal, and her performance was very good.
At the 1997 Women's World Volleyball Championship, Lang Ping finally led the Chinese women's volleyball team trained by her to the highest podium and won the championship for China, and her coaching career reached a new peak.
However, at this time, Wei Jizhong, then chairman of the Chinese Volleyball Association, began to squeeze out Lang Ping openly and secretly. Because Lang Ping had lived abroad for a long time and did not understand the complex human feelings unique to China, he could not fully submit to the power of Wei Jizhong. Lang Ping couldn't see the various rotten habits within the Chinese women's volleyball team and directly confronted Wei Jizhong .
And Wei Jizhong also suppressed Lang Ping through various means, which seriously affected her coaching. In desperation, Lang Ping could only resign as the head coach of the Chinese women's volleyball team in 1999, leaving the team he had led to the peak, and choosing to return to the United States to continue his coaching career. However, Lang Ping's strength and charm are unquestionable, and she soon became the head coach of the US women's volleyball team and continued to shine on the international stage.
At the same time, after losing Lang Ping, the record of the Chinese women's volleyball team has plummeted. At the 2001 World Championships, the Chinese women's volleyball team fell out of the final four for the first time and did not win a medal. At the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, the Chinese women's volleyball team encountered Waterloo when it reached the top 16, and had no choice but to fly back to China early. All the results show that after losing Lang Ping, the Chinese women's volleyball team quickly fell from the peak to the trough, and its strength declined sharply.
After this series of failures, when the 2008 Beijing Olympics arrived, the Chinese Volleyball Association finally had to face the reality - without Lang Ping, the Chinese women's volleyball team could not return to the top. So, under the heavy financial gift, Lang Ping was invited to return to China and re-coach the Chinese women's volleyball team.
In the face of the women's volleyball team that has accumulated a lot of shortcomings, Lang Ping did not complain at all, but just tied up his braids and plunged into training again. She first decisively cleaned up many bad habits in the team, then formulated a rigorous new training plan, insisted on blood renewal, and selected a large number of young players to join the relay.
Under the general optimism of public opinion, Lang Ping led the young women's volleyball team to the final of the Beijing Olympics with amazing perseverance and finally won the championship. This gold medal slapped Wei Jizhong, who had squeezed out Lang Ping, in the face.
Volleyball dreams continue, and Lang Ping's legend continues. At the 2012 London Olympics, Lang Ping once again led the increasingly mature Chinese women's volleyball team to win the championship. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Lang Ping completed the unprecedented "three consecutive championships" of the Chinese women's volleyball team, and her coaching ability and charm were once again perfectly verified. Every time he won the final championship, he fully proved to Wei Jizhong that without Lang Ping, there would be no glory of the Chinese women's volleyball team.
However, just when everyone thought that Wei Jizhong would recognize the reality, this old man still did not die. On several public occasions, he continued to criticize Lang Ping for being "old" and believed that he should consider changing the head coach. Before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he also unfounded the judgment that Lang Ping's defensive strategy was problematic and it was difficult to win the final. But in the end, Lang Ping still led the team to win the gold medal again as he wished, and successfully completed the "fourth consecutive championship" of the women's volleyball team.
When Lang Ping was about to retire gloriously, Wei Jizhong, the "old rival", began to move again. He began to build momentum for Cai Bin, who had previously coached the Chinese women's volleyball team, apparently wanting him to replace Lang Ping as the new head coach.
Over the years, Wei Jizhong has never forgotten the humiliation of being "slapped in the face" by Lang Ping's strength. He still tried to regain control of the personnel power of the Chinese women's volleyball team, but Lang Ping and the team led by her defeated Wei Jizhong's calculations step by step with brilliant results. Wei Jizhong's actions in squeezing out Lang Ping eventually made him inescapable in public opinion. This time, he seems to have really stepped into the abyss of life.
<< - Epilogue - · >>
Wei Jizhong's contribution to the sports world is also obvious to all. So should he, as a long-time general, continue to stick to his own approach, or should he adapt to the times? This seems to be a difficult question to decide. The course of history is unstoppable, but should individual values change with it? This requires us to continue to think.