If you could sum up your life in two words, what would you use?
"Persistence" and "Innovation"
In 2017, former Chinese women's volleyball captain Xie Jinfang used these two words to summarize her life in an interview.
After working all her life, she suffered from leukemia in her later years, but she still stuck to her job, even when she reached the age of retirement, she stuck to the front line, and in the face of the dissuasion of relatives and friends, she responded: Either don't do it, or it's the best.
Xie Jinfang has been campaigning for China's sports industry all her life, not only managing volleyball in her old profession, but also worrying about other departments and the development of sports as a whole.
What kind of legend did she have in her life, and how did she promote the development of sports?
The content described in this article is based on official and reliable sources, which are repeated at the end of this article
Those things about the women's volleyball team
When it comes to volleyball, the first thing that comes to people's minds is Lang Ping, who gave up the preferential treatment abroad during the low period of the women's volleyball team, and still returned to China to support the women's volleyball team.
Xie Jinfang entered the national team earlier than Lang Ping, and was the women's captain at that time, and there were rumors that the two people were not compatible, until a group photo was exposed, which broke the rumor.
On November 16, 1981, the Chinese women's volleyball team went to Osaka, Japan to participate in the third women's volleyball World Championship, perhaps the blood of the Chinese, of course, it is inseparable from the efforts of the women's volleyball team, the Chinese team won seven battles and seven victories, and finally won the championship, which is the first time that China won the world championship in the world basketball, volleyball and football competitions!
Hundreds of millions of viewers across the country were excited about this, and in order to celebrate this wonderful moment, "People's Pictorial" published a photo of Sun Jinfang and Lang Ping, the two main players of the Chinese women's volleyball team, hugging each other excitedly, on the cover of the magazine.
The sweet smile on his face shattered the rumors of incompatibility, so what happened between the two?
On this day, when Xie Jinfang was training, she saw coach Yuan Weimin bring over a tall girl, and it was not unusual for the newcomer to come in, but the coach's arrangement made her feel dissatisfied.
How can a newcomer who has just come in serve as the main attacker, as a setter, she will pass the ball to her in the future, so what should Yang Xi do?
In addition to fighting for her good friend, Xie Jinfang also thought that Lang Ping must have come in through the back door, and she didn't like this the most.
But the coach has already arranged it, and she has no choice but to obey, but she still has an opinion on Lang Ping in her heart.
Not long after, in a game, the conflict between the two was exacerbated by a mistake, and when playing a friendly match with Japan, one of Lang Ping's balls was blocked.
Xie Jinfang felt that Lang Ping's offensive speed was slow, and this situation had never occurred when she cooperated with Yang Xi, the more she thought about the tone, she was ready to say, but who knows, Lang Ping came and said: "Please pass it quickly next time." ”
Sure enough, he came in through the back door, and if the technology is not good, he will throw the pot, and he has been the captain for so long, and no one has said anything about himself.
In this way, neither of the two of them was convinced, and they quarreled until Yuan Weimin came over, and the two stopped arguing and asked Xie Jinfang to write a review for public reflection.
In the volleyball women's game, the main attack and setter are the key, and the consequences of the discord between the two can be imagined, they lost the game, Xie Jinfang also recognized his own problems, and promised that he would never have this kind of situation in the future.
Perhaps it was from this time that the outside world began to say that they did not agree with each other, and the real situation was that they did not know each other, and in the subsequent game, the two of them cooperated tacitly and won the "five consecutive championships", leading Chinese volleyball to the world.
By mistake, he became a volleyball player
Volleyball was not in his life plan in the first place, just because of a chance encounter.
Xie Jinfang has a great advantage in height from a very young age, and it can be said that she is a simple-minded type with developed limbs, but her mind is full of knowledge, and she is a veritable scholar.
Entered Suzhou Railway Normal School with excellent results, and when she participated in the sports meeting, she was favored by a coach who served as a referee, and she participated in the long jump competition at that time, with outstanding results.
Xie Jinfang originally wanted to become a people's teacher, because this jump changed the trajectory of his original life.
At that time, people didn't know everything about volleyball, only that it was a kind of ball played with their hands, and young people were always curious about new things, so they joined sports teams to train.
I was often joked about by my classmates because of my height, and after I came here, I realized that there are so many tall people in the world!
It's really hard to be an athlete, and it's really happy to study, and two or three hours of training every day makes her very tired, and she often falls asleep as soon as she lies in bed.
In this way, Xie Jinfang's study time was compressed, and she was worried that her studies would be wasted, so she proposed to the coach that she wanted to quit.
What no one could have imagined was that what made the seeded players of the women's volleyball team change their minds was a subsidy of two or three yuan.
At that time, this amount was already a lot, Xie Jinfang trained more energetically, and three months later, he represented Jiangsu Province to Nanjing to participate in the trials, and through excellent performance, he successfully entered the provincial team and stayed in Nanjing.
Xie Jinfang's parents have a more traditional concept, thinking that girls are good teachers and educating people, and they want to be athletes, which is hard and undeveloped.
At that time, she was already fully in love with the sport, and she imagined that one day she could stand on the world stage and win the championship and win glory for her country.
The parents saw that their daughter was "going crazy", so they decided to go to Nanjing to persuade her to come back, and when they saw her, the mother's distressed tears burst out of her eyes.
Xie Jinfang was practicing with his teammates in the corridor of the dormitory at this time, and her originally black and beautiful hair was wet and hit her daughter's face, and her whole body looked like she had just climbed out of the water, but she still had a satisfied smile on her face because of the goal.
The mother wiped her tears and wanted to say something, but was stopped by her father, Xie Jin guessed it, and said comfortingly: "When I play in the future, I will win a gold inlaid jade for you." ”
Later, in an interview, she revealed that the reason why she had to practice in the corridor of the dormitory was because the space was small and difficult, and she could play well here, let alone when it was an open field.
Xie Jinfang did what she said, not only won the championship, but also led the Chinese women's volleyball team to achieve the glorious moment of "five consecutive championships".
Running for sports
In 1976, Xie Jinfang entered the national team and began to become a professional player, she was not proud of it, but clearly realized that although she had made achievements before, the national team gathered talents from all over the world, and she needed to learn a lot.
After Xie Jinfang entered the national team, she successfully sat in the position of captain of the women's volleyball team with her solid professional skills and led the women's volleyball team to the world.
The Chinese women's volleyball team won the championship in the second Asian Volleyball Championship in 1979, and won the championship for the first time in the third World Cup in 1981. In 1984, he was named one of the outstanding athletes in the 35 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Xie Jinfang has been in the women's volleyball team for so many years, and she has gained a lot of honors, and she has retired, many people will think that she will continue to engage in volleyball-related work, but she turned to another completely unfamiliar industry - sports lottery.
Like challenges have always been her style,Sports lottery at this time is a newly founded industry,No one knows what the future will be,In case of failure,Her efforts in recent years have been in vain.
If there are conditions, you have to do it, and if you don't have the conditions, you have to do it!
Xie Jinfang feels that the possibility of the future should be grasped in his own hands, even if its future is blank, I believe that it will definitely be able to develop and contribute to China's sports industry.
In 2000, Sun Jinfang was transferred to the director of the China Sports Lottery Center, became the head of the China Sports Lottery, and became a department-level cadre.
Jiangsu is a pilot for sports tickets in China, and sales were not ideal at first, but in the nearly a year since she took over, sales have risen to 57 billion yuan, which is the sales of the previous seven years combined.
After Xie Jinfang stayed in the sports lottery center for 3 years, seeing that the development was getting better and better day by day, she left and came to the director of the Tennis Sports Management Center of the General Administration of Sports of China.
The first thing she did after taking office was to find Li Na, who had retired, and she saw that Li Na still had unlimited possibilities.
The first thing we said when we met was: Do you want to continue playing tennis?
Li Na nodded affirmatively, and when she wanted to say something, she was interrupted by Xie Jinfang and said, "You don't have to worry about the rest, just play well." ”
Li Na lived up to Xie Jinfang's expectations and became a legend in the tennis world, proving herself with her strength.
Xie Jinfang has been running for sports all her life, and unfortunately suffered from leukemia in her later years, she resigned from her position and began to fight cancer.
The doctor took the treatment method of "regular exchange transfusion" for her, which was very painful, and ordinary people could not hold on, but she did not cry out of pain, and after unremitting efforts, she finally defeated the disease.
There is an athlete in the Chinese sports world who has died with all his hard work like Xie Jinfang, that is Cai Zhenhua, the "Godfather of Table Tennis".
He was coaching in Sweden at that time, and when he saw that the national table tennis was at a low point, he resolutely returned to the embrace of the motherland, regardless of his physical pain, even if he was lying on the table tennis table in the training hall to supervise the training.
In the end, under his leadership, the national table tennis went to the world again, laying a solid foundation for the current brilliant strength.
It is precisely because of the efforts of these people that there will be the status of Chinese sports on the world stage, and it also reflects the growth of the national sportsmanship.
Resources:
Xinhuanet: "Tennis Center Reform Li Na No Longer Pays, Sun Jinfang: The First to Eat Crabs"
China News Weekly: Sun Jinfang: A Pragmatic Experimenter