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"I want to produce 100 world champions!"
Such bold words come from the mouth of Li Yongbo, the coach of China's badminton "dream team", who has cultivated 92 world champions in 24 years of coaching, creating one miracle after another, and can be called the "godfather of national badminton".
But no one expected that just a few steps away from the goal, he stepped down as the head coach with an annual salary of one million and went to Malaysia to work as a farmer and grow durian.
So, how is Li Yongbo doing today?
Trained 90 world champions
Li Yongbo, who retired due to injury, was invited to the national "dream team" to serve as the head coach of badminton.
For this reason, Li Yongbo specially formulated a "devil training plan" for the players, requiring them to assemble on time at 6:45 in the morning, but unexpectedly, there were only a few people on the training ground on the first day.
Obviously, these team members don't take training seriously at all, and Li Yongbo, who is extremely lazy and angry, has no choice but to pick up the "whip" and beat it, so that the team members can train well.
It's a pity that in the face of the sudden high-intensity training, the team members are really difficult to accept, and with a questioning mentality, they follow the pace of Li Yongbo's leadership and participate in the training.
As a result, it was not surprising that in the Asian Games, I thought that Li Yongbo's team members would be able to win the ranking in one fell swoop, but unexpectedly, the final result was miserable.
The first failure of the game led to the fact that in the subsequent training, the players had no intention of practicing hard, and Li Yongbo, as the head coach, also began to reflect on himself.
On the one hand, he realized that Li Yongbo was inexperienced, and on the other hand, he thought that maybe there was a problem with the training method and it was very unsuitable for the players, so after careful consideration, he decided to reshape the "devilish" training program.
At the end of the day, every player was exhausted, went back to the dormitory and fell asleep, and before dawn the next day, he got up and continued training, even if he was angry, he was too tired to say a word.
For this reason, Li Yongbo has set up clear rewards and punishments, if anyone fails to complete the task, they will be severely punished, on the contrary, if they perform well during training, they will be rewarded accordingly.
Over time, the state of the players has been renewed, and they no longer have the luxury of being lazy in training, and they devote themselves to training and strive to strengthen their own strength until 1995, under the leadership of Li Yongbo, they won the championship trophy.
At this point, the national feather officially opened the road to the championship, and "killed all sides" in the world sports arena, not only won gold medals in the World Championships and Uber Cup, but also won one gold medal after another in the Olympic Games with top technology.
Especially in the 2012 London Olympics, the team members led by Li Yongbo set a historical record one after another, winning 5 gold medals, and at that time, Li Yongbo has become the "godfather of national feathers".
According to statistics, during the 24 years of Li Yongbo's coaching, a total of 92 badminton championships have been created, including the most eye-catching "master player" Lin Dan, as well as Fu Haifeng and other stars.
However, with only 8 points shy of the 100 championships, Li Yongbo made a decision that shocked everyone.
Go abroad to grow durian
In 2017, Li Yongbo officially announced his retirement and gave up his position as the coach of the national team with an annual salary of one million, due to his limited physical condition.
It is the result of Li Yongbo's careful thinking, and everyone is helpless, but they regret the end of a generation of "godfathers", but they didn't expect that after quitting, he would live such a life.
Since leaving the sports world, many countries have thrown olive branches to Li Yongbo, including the British Badminton Association, however, in the face of the temptation of a lot of high salaries, Li Yongbo did not hesitate to veto.
In his opinion, after working hard for half his life, it is time to stop and live some enjoyable life, and then, Li Yongbo chose to go to Malaysia with Li Yongbo, who had saved half of his life.
With the loan money, Li Yongbo rented hundreds of acres of land, invested in a durian orchard, became a farmer, planted durian for business, and imported high-quality durian seedlings from Indonesia to hire local agricultural employees.
In order to improve the quality, Li Yongpoter intends to hire professional Chinese horticulturists to produce varieties suitable for the local climate, including the introduction of modern monitoring equipment to monitor the growth process of the products.
With such dedication to management, Li Yongbo launched his own durian brand in only five years, and sold well in markets around the world.
While Li Yongbo found the value of life, he can be said to have made a lot of money, and lived happily with his wife and family, but the good times did not last long, since Li Yongbo withdrew, the development of Guoyu was not optimistic.
It wasn't until Li Yongbo in front of the TV that after discovering this scene, his heart suddenly had mixed feelings, although he had already let go of his love for Guoyu, but in the end he chose to move forward with a heavy load.
The status quo
Perhaps it was the oath he made that year to create 100 champions, and the distance was only 8, which caused Li Yongbo to regret it at this time, so with the support of his wife, he resolutely returned to his hometown in 2020.
In order to revive the badminton career of the motherland, Li Yongbo opened a badminton club after arriving in his hometown of Liaoning, and at the opening scene, many big names in the circle appeared to congratulate him on his return.
Perhaps it is because he has returned to the once familiar venue, Li Yongbo's life is particularly comfortable, in addition to running the club on weekdays, whenever he has spare time, he will appear at the badminton game scene and pay attention to the national team's events.
It was not until now, after the official news of the international club was exposed, that people found out that Li Yongbo had returned to the training ground and devoted half his life to teaching athletes.
Compared with the life of growing durian abroad, in his opinion, the work of a coach is his "belonging", because whenever he sees the players sweating on the field, Li Yongbo can always feel happy and happy.
If you talk about whether you regret not completing the 100 world championships promised that year, Li Yongbo must be full of regrets, but in the eyes of the outside world, the former "godfather of national feathers" has become a rising career and a happy family, which is not a kind of life.
It's a pity that Li Yongbo's "dream team" has become a thing of the past, and when looking back on his life, it is not difficult to see that Li Yongbo's love for badminton has always been moving forward.
As for Li Yongbo's contribution, it must be a bright page written for Chinese badminton, this spirit of transcending oneself and chasing dreams is worth learning from, and the badminton superstars he has cultivated are also shining in all walks of life and moving towards different lives.