On April 24, Beijing time, in the women's 200-meter breaststroke final of the 2024 National Swimming Championships, Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen successfully overtook teenager Tang Qianting at 100 meters and maintained the lead until the end, and finally achieved an excellent result of 2:22.55, which not only allowed her to win the championship, but also reached the Olympic A standard of 2:23.91, which means that she will be a member of the Chinese swimming team to compete in the upcoming Paris Olympics.
Ye Shiwen, 28 years old this year, can be said to be a veteran of Chinese swimming today. At the London Olympics 12 years ago, at the age of 16, she won two gold medals in the 400m and 200m medley in a row, and broke the world record in the 400m medley. Thus became famous.
However, just when everyone thought she was about to usher in her golden age and dominate the pool, her form plummeted, and at Rio 2016, she lost her competitiveness in the mixed freestyle event. Three years ago, he missed out on the Tokyo Olympics by 0.01 seconds.
After that, she was almost semi-retired until early 2022, when she decided to resume training and return to the pool in order to achieve her dream of winning gold at the Asian Games in Hangzhou on her home turf. On September 28, 2023, she won the women's 200m breaststroke final at the Hangzhou Asian Games with a time of 2:23.84.
It is worth noting that at the London Olympics, Ye Shiwen became famous with the mixed freestyle event, but after 12 years, she is basically no longer competitive in this event, and in the 400m mixed freestyle event yesterday, she did not even enter the final, and it was the breaststroke that helped her qualify for the Olympics.
In this regard, Ye Shiwen also said on social media after the game that the loss of the medley gave her a big blow, coupled with some physical problems, she once thought that the wind in London could not blow in Paris, but the support of fans gave her the strength to persevere.
In any case, from becoming famous at a young age to falling into a trough, from a trough to a dream, the significance of Ye Shiwen's inspirational story no longer exists not only at the level of sports competition, but also in her spirit of defying difficulties, perseverance, and forging ahead, which is more worthy of our pursuit and learning.