In a hospital in Taiwan, China, there is a special cancer patient.
It had been three weeks since he became ill, his mouth was completely rotten, he was completely unable to eat, and every time he ate was a form of torture, he had to spray numbing into his mouth to eat.
33 electrotherapy sessions, an average of 6 sessions per week, no less than 25 minutes each time...
But do you dare to believe it? Such a person is actually the "first brother in Malaysia" who once dominated the sports world in badminton: Lee Chong Wei.
He is not only a famous Malaysian badminton player, but also one of Lin Dan's evenly matched opponents in the sports world, and he is also one of the few foreign players who is loved by domestic fans.
However, just as exciting as his history of struggle in the sports world is his legend of fighting cancer.
The statements in this article are based on reliable sources of information and are detailed at the end of the article.
01. Dominate the court
Although Lee Chong Wei is Malaysian, his ancestral home is actually China, and his hometown is in Fujian.
At the beginning, Lee Chong Wei's parents went abroad with a large number of people who went to sea to do business, and then they came to Malaysia.
It can be said that Li Zongwei's family is not wealthy, so Li Zongwei was not in good health because of malnutrition when he was a child, so his parents sent him to learn badminton.
After a period of training, Lee Chong Wei's skills became more and more proficient, his body gradually improved, and badminton became one of his great hobbies, where he also met an enlightened mentor in his badminton career: Zheng Bingfa.
Zheng Bingfa found that Lee Chong Wei's body is very flexible and can make great achievements in the field of badminton.
So Zheng Bingfa found Lee Chong Wei's parents and expressed the hope that Lee Chong Wei could learn Xi badminton systematically.
Fortunately, Li Zongwei's father is very open-minded and thinks that as long as his son likes it, he can do anything.
In this way, badminton changed from a hobby to a career for Lee Chong Wei, and Lee Chong Wei also began to take classes during the day and go to the badminton hall at night to practice Xi.
Xi every day until he sweated, badminton seemed to have become a part of his life unconsciously.
Lee Chong Wei is very hardworking, so his results are also very outstanding, he relied on his good talent, all the way up, from the badminton professional school to the state team, and after a series of selections, he entered the national team very smoothly.
In 1999, at the age of 17, Lee Chong Wei successfully won the championship in the world-class arena, which was also the first world championship in his life!
This honor made Lee Chong Wei famous in one fell swoop and became a famous young player in Malaysia.
Since then, he has appeared in several world-class competitions, won many medals, and because of his ancestral home in China, he is also sought after by Chinese fans in addition to Malaysia.
In 2004, Lee Chong Wei soared to No. 16 in the world rankings, an achievement he had earned with hard work.
However, he also encountered the number one enemy of his career: Lin Dan.
02. Li Zongwei VS Lin Dan
As early as 2000, Lee Chong Wei met Lin Dan, and the two stood on the podium of the Asian Youth Championships in Tokyo, with Lin Dan as the champion and he as the third runner-up.
After that, Li Zongwei seemed to have fallen into the curse of "the second in ten thousand years", and he had opponents with Lin Dan many times, but he always lost.
Many people think that the two of them are very fateful opponents, as long as Lin Dan is present, Li Zongwei always can't escape the ending of winning the second place, just like Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the relationship between "both Shengyu and He Shengliang".
But Li Zongwei did not have jealousy like Zhou Yu in the novel, but increased his strength step by step, hoping to use his absolute strength to defeat Lin Dan once.
During that time, the badminton world seemed to be ruled by the two of them, and no one could crush these two.
Li Zongwei also wondered, as long as Lin Dan is there, he is the third runner-up, and without Li Dan, he is the champion. It seems that only Lin Dan can defeat Li Zongwei.
Lin Dan also believes that Lee Chong Wei is an admirable opponent.
In the 2004 Thomas Cup, the two had a hearty game, although Lin Dan still won, but Li Zongwei did not have any negative emotions, and the two hugged each other tightly after the game, as if paying tribute to each other.
It wasn't until August 19, 2016 that Lee Chong Wei finally defeated Lin Dan in the Olympic arena.
thought that Li Zongwei would win the first place, but the Chinese team defeated the dark horse player Chen Long and directly defeated Li Zongwei, and Li Zongwei became the third runner-up again, which is really laughable.
Originally, Li Zongwei wanted to work harder, hoping to win the championship in the next competition.
But fate played a fatal joke on him, and he ushered in the second strong enemy in his life.
03. The second strong enemy
In July 2018, Li Zongwei felt unwell, so he was temporarily suspended and returned to China for treatment.
As a result, Li Zongwei was unexpectedly diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer!
This was a fatal blow to him, and the second strong enemy in his life, cancer.
Cancer was so terrible that in order to get better as soon as possible, Lee Chong Wei stopped all competition and training and went to a hospital in Taiwan, China, for treatment.
The terrible thing is that Lee Chong Wei's condition spread very quickly.
Because nasopharyngeal carcinoma is located in a very special location, there is no way to do resection surgery, and the best treatment effect is electroshock therapy.
During his months in Taiwan, Lee received a total of 33 shocks, an average of six shocks a week, each lasting more than 25 minutes.
Because of the long-term electroshock treatment, Li Zongwei's neck lymphatic area became larger, his throat was all rotten, and there were few good pieces in his mouth.
However, this was only the third week after the onset of the disease, and Lee Chong Wei was already in great pain, because his throat was almost completely rotten, he could not eat at all, and it was very difficult to speak.
Even if he opened his mouth, Li Zongwei could feel a strong pain, eating was simply torture, every bite he ate was like a mouthful of boiling water, poured in his throat and eyes.
Li Zongwei felt that he was about to lose it, and even couldn't bear it anymore, so he had to spray anesthetic in his throat, and then swallow it quickly, otherwise it would be another pain when the medicine was over.
The only people who took care of him were his wife and mother, and Lee Chong Wei's wife was also an excellent badminton player, Huang Miaozhu, but after marrying Lee Chong Wei, she gave up her playing career and became a full-time wife.
Looking at her husband who is tormented by illness every day, Huang Miaozhu often can't help crying, but she is afraid that her husband will see it, so she always hides and cries secretly.
But Li Zongwei knows all this, he said that he knows that his wife is always crying, and Li Zongwei is not the same? He also cries, but he is also unwilling to let others see it.
Therefore, Li Zongwei always quietly cried in the bath, and he was more reluctant to see his family and lover cry because of him than he was afraid of death.
Fortunately, Lee Chong Wei was in the early stage of cancer and had a very high cure rate, and after more than two months, he was finally discharged from the hospital.
But when he wanted to get back on the field and continue to fight, he deeply felt that he was powerless.
04. Regret to leave
Because he didn't train for a few months, Li Zongwei felt that something was weird, and the effect was always not so good during training.
At this time, he was preparing for the Tokyo Olympics the following year.
However, after training again and again, Lee Chong Wei's muscles ached all over his body, as if to tell him that you are no longer suitable for badminton.
But Li Zongwei didn't believe in this evil, and the more he practiced Xi, the less his body was able to exert his strength, and his body coordination became much worse.
Later, Li Zongwei asked the doctor and realized that this was the sequelae of electroshock therapy, which caused his muscles to atrophy and make it difficult to participate in high-intensity training.
Li Zongwei was not convinced, but his body rang the alarm bell.
Retirement, these two words, finally came to Li Zongwei's mind.
The heart of wanting to defeat Lin Dan has not yet dispersed, and he hopes that one day, he can have another hearty duel with Lin Dan. But his heart wanted to win, but his body couldn't.
After struggling for I don't know how many days and nights, he looked at the medals he brought one by one, and suddenly felt that this was actually good...
On June 13, 2019, Li Zongwei officially announced his retirement, bid farewell to his beloved badminton, and said goodbye to his opponent Lin Dan.
Although Lee Chong Wei did not realize his wish in the end, he did not give up his love for life, and he devoted his energy to his family.
Lee Chong Wei and his wife switched identities, he began to take care of his two sons, and when he had free time, he would go on vacation with his family.
In May 2023, Lee Chong Wei was inducted into the BWF Hall of Fame. He deserves this glory.
Resources:
[1] China News Network-"Li Zongwei Tears Recall the Anti-Cancer Process: His Throat Is Completely Broken, and He Needs to Spray Anesthetic to Eat"