Preface
I want to be the "queen of butterflies" in the world!
On this year's "Moving China" column, Bai Yansong looked at the famous swimmer Zhang Yufei sitting opposite and asked a question, he said:
In 2023, you have won a total of 23 gold medals in 59 events, an average of 4 days of competition, aren't you tired?
But Zhang Yufei said: I'm tired, but I can't refuse! Because some competitions are for myself, but there are also some competitions for the country!
Later, Zhang Yufei also said that if I participate in a competition just for my own ideals, then I can say no. But if you still have the responsibility of the country on your shoulders, then there is only one choice, and that is to do it!
However, Zhang Yufei, who is such a person who wins glory for the country and regards national responsibility as greater than his dreams, was questioned by netizens after being selected for the "Moving China" column, why is this?
Zhang Yufei revealed that he didn't like swimming
Zhang Yufei's ability to embark on the path of swimming and achieve such high results is closely related to her parents.
Zhang Yufei was born in 1998 in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, to a sports family, and her parents are both professional swimmers. And Zhang Yufei's mother, Zhang Min, didn't want her daughter to take the path of professional swimming at first.
Because their parents are swimmers themselves, they know the tears and hard work it takes to be an athlete.
But what they didn't expect was that Zhang Yufei learned to swim by herself when she was only three years old, because Zhang Yufei's parents were very busy at that time and had no time to care about her.
And her mother Zhang Min would take swimming classes every summer vacation at that time, so she took Zhang Yufei to the swimming pool to prepare a swimming ring for her, and then let her play on the side while she taught students.
When Zhang Yufei was three years old, her mother Zhang Min took her to the swimming pool as usual to let her play on the shore.
This scene happened to be seen by Zhang Yufei's mother Zhang Min, and Zhang Min was immediately shocked, because Zhang Min had never taught his daughter any swimming movements, and she actually learned to swim herself.
Later, Zhang Yufei's mother felt that she and Zhang Yufei's father were both professional swimmers, and if Zhang Yufei's swimming movements were too amateurish, it would not be easy for others to laugh at them.
After that, Zhang Yufei's parents decided to let Zhang Yufei go to the swimming team to receive formal swimming training, and it was this decision that made Zhang Yufei have his current achievements.
But for Zhang Yufei, she actually doesn't like swimming, and Zhang Yufei also revealed in an interview that she really doesn't like swimming.
In the eyes of many people, they feel that Zhang Yufei has lived in this kind of swimming family since he was a child, and his results are very good, so it is natural that he should go to the provincial team and the national team.
Perhaps when many children learn a sport, most of them are because they already like it, but Zhang Yufei is not.
She doesn't think swimming is fun at all, because Zhang Yufei is very tired every day when she receives professional training, and in terms of studying, Zhang Yufei's mother stipulates that her score is not allowed to be lower than 90 points.
In this way, Zhang Yufei has to work very hard every day to learn knowledge and improve her performance, but on the other hand, she feels that her parents are professional swimmers, and she can't swim too badly to embarrass them.
In this situation of running at both ends, Zhang Yufei is not only physically tired, but also mentally very tired sometimes, so she doesn't like swimming very much.
However, when Zhang Yufei was about to graduate from the sixth grade, her homeroom teacher went to Zhang Yufei's mother, because Zhang Yufei's academic performance in school was also very good at that time, and he was always in the top ten in the class.
At this time, the head teacher asked Zhang Min, now that Zhang Yufei's grades are also good, are you still going to let Zhang Yufei go to the road of swimming?
In fact, Zhang Min was quite contradictory at this time, because although Zhang Yufei's swimming performance at that time was among the best in the province, he could not enter the provincial team.
So Zhang Min went home to ask her daughter's opinion, and Zhang Yufei felt that after all, she had been training for so many years, her grades in the province were also good, and she had made a lot of good friends in the swimming team, and she didn't want to give up like that.
In this way, Zhang Yufei embarked on her own swimming journey!
He entered the national team at the age of 15
Zhang Yufei was only 12 years old in 2010, and she won two gold, three silver and one bronze medals in one fell swoop at the 17th Jiangsu Provincial Games, and became famous in one fell swoop!
Zhang Yufei was also selected by the Jiangsu Provincial School, and in just 6 months after entering the provincial school, Zhang Yufei was selected into the Jiangsu Provincial Team without receiving a trial because of his outstanding performance and excellent results.
Zhang Yufei, who was only 13 years old at the time, also became the youngest player in the history of the Jiangsu Provincial Team!
It was also in this year that Zhang Yufei participated in the Beijing station of the Short Course Swimming World Cup and successfully won the silver medal in the women's 400-meter freestyle and the bronze medal in the 100-meter butterfly.
For Zhang Yufei, who participated in the World Series for the first time, he successfully won one silver and one bronze for the first time, and was also successfully favored by the national team.
In 2013, Zhang Yufei, who was only 15 years old, was selected for the national team, and under the training of coach Liu Haitao, Zhang Yufei's performance improved by leaps and bounds in the next two years.
In May 2014, Zhang Yufei participated in the women's 50-meter butterfly event in the National Swimming Championships and Asian Games Trials, and successfully won the third place.
And then in the women's 200m butterfly final of the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games in August, she successfully won the second place.
In October of the same year, Zhang Yufei participated in the National Swimming Championships, and in the final of the women's 200-meter freestyle, Zhang Yufei successfully won the championship, and won the 400-meter freestyle championship again in the national championships a few days later!
Zhang Yufei, who is getting better and better, did not relax his training, but worked harder to strengthen his movements and techniques.
In August 2015, Zhang Yufei successfully won the third place in the women's 200m butterfly final of the World Swimming Championships and set a world youth record!
But in the next Rio Olympics, Zhang Yufei encountered the biggest Waterloo in her life, and even made her reluctant to touch the women's 200-meter butterfly for a long time!
Scoliosis was detected by changing technique for grades
It can be said that before the 2016 Rio Olympics, Zhang Yufei was unstoppable and could win medals in many major competitions, but at this Rio Olympics, she realized the gap between her and those foreign Olympians.
In November, in the final of the women's 200m butterfly at the Olympic Games, Zhang Yufei, who participated in the Olympics for the first time, finished sixth in 2:07.
After the game, Zhang Yufei said in an interview with reporters: I feel a little sorry for my coach for this result, and there are so many expectations of the audience.
There was a little crying in her voice, and then Zhang Yufei prepared for the women's 200-meter butterfly competition at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in order to be ashamed.
Zhang Yufei was taught and trained by coach Cui Dengrong in 2018, in order to break through herself, she began to change her swimming skills, but changing the techniques she was already familiar with and good at was equivalent to learning from scratch, and the risk was very large.
But if she doesn't have the courage to make a change, then she will repeat the mistakes of the Rio Olympics again, but after she is ready to change her skills, she finds a very serious problem, that is, scoliosis!
Because Zhang Yufei's spine is different from that of normal people, most people's spine is straight, but Zhang Yufei's spine is indeed S-shaped. This leads to Zhang Yufei's body not being able to bear too much weight during training, and it will also lead to frequent injuries or back pain.
In this regard, Zhang Yufei can only put in more effort and sweat to change his technology.
But Zhang Yufei is not so easy to be defeated, since he was a child, Zhang Yufei has said a sentence to himself, that is: As long as you can't kill me, I will be stronger tomorrow!
For this reason, Zhang Yufei began to strengthen his strength training at the end of 2019, and in order to exercise his upper body strength, Zhang Yufei even carried 40 kilograms to do pull-ups.
The 2021 Tokyo Olympics is coming as scheduled, and Zhang Yufei swam her best in the women's 200m butterfly at the Tokyo Olympics Trials and successfully won the gold medal!
At the Tokyo Olympics, he won the runner-up in the 100m butterfly and the champion in the 200m butterfly, and set a new Olympic record!
Successfully overcome the pain and surpass yourself.
was questioned by netizens
In 2023, we will make persistent efforts to reach a higher level and be honored at the award ceremony of the "Moving China" column!
But many netizens felt very incomprehensible that Zhang Yufei was able to choose "Moving China" and said that she was just an athlete, how could she move China?
Some netizens even asked who she touched?
At the Hangzhou Asian Games in September 2023, Zhang Yufei came to the court with a fever of 39°4 and successfully won her fifth gold medal in this Asian Games.
And in the last game of the Asian Games, Zhang Yufei's physical condition was very poor, but in order to win glory for the country, Zhang Yufei still insisted on participating and won the final championship.
In the end, with six gold medals, he successfully became the athlete who won the most gold medals in the Hangzhou Asian Games, and Zhang Yufei moved countless audiences with his strong strength and the spirit of never giving up to win glory for the country.
epilogue
It can be said that Zhang Yufei's never-say-die spirit of winning glory for the country is worth learning from, and her ability to overcome illness and break through her own limits for her dreams is also worthy of our admiration.
Finally, I hope that Zhang Yufei can get better results in the next Paris Olympics, as she said, to become the world's "butterfly queen"!