With the end of the qualification cycle for the marathon event at the Paris Olympics on May 5, the quota places and participation lineups of various countries and regions are gradually becoming clear. The Chinese team will be sorted according to the selection method, and it will be a six-member lineup composed of He Jie, Yang Shaohui, Wu Xiangdong, Zhang Deshun, Xia Yuyu and Bai Li.
At present, the national training team has started the last systematic preparation before the Olympic Games in Yuxi, Yunnan, and today we want to talk about the story behind these three names, three heavenly rewards.
Born at the end of 1998, He Jie is the youngest member of the lineup, breaking the national record twice and winning the Asian Games at the age of less than 26.
Although the stage of "producing results" in the marathon event seems to be early, He Jie, who has no sports school experience and directly entered the provincial team, has also spent a full decade of professional training. Judging from the early days, he is definitely not that kind of talented player, and his strength is not as good as his senior brothers Tie Liang and Fu Wenguo during the field competition, and he is also the junior brother behind Peng Jianhua for a period of time after starting his career in the national training team.
Whether it is the first athlete in Qinhuangdao in 2019 or Nanjing running to 2:15:33 in 2020, He Jie's name is "not famous" on the rivers and lakes, and he is not well known by the public.
If it weren't for the national team's selection of sparring athletes who were favored by Coach Xiao Li, He Jie might have ended his professional team career after the 2020 Nanjing Marathon and went to university to seek a new direction of development.
It was an opportunity to follow Coach Xiao Li to a new training concept, and He Jie clearly seized the opportunity. Under Xiao Li's guidance of large amount of exercise, large intensity, and large adjustment, He Jie's performance progress can be described as a leap.
Runners who have an impression will remember that before he broke the national record for the first time in Wuxi at 2:07:30, his PB was 2:11:18 in Berlin half a year ago, and he directly improved by more than 3 minutes at this level to become the first person to break through history, which is estimated to be something that no one in the outside world has thought about except himself and his coach.
From the winter of 2020 to the present, He Jie has followed the team to Chenggong, Yuxi, Kenya and other places in Yunnan Province for training, and rarely goes home. As the "third" in the family, he is the hope of the whole family; As the best athlete in Ningxia track and field and even Ningxia sports, he is now the focus of the unit's care and protection.
With the support of daily 40 km and 45 km + large exercise training, He Jie's stability and ability to "top" in the late marathon have been tested in many races. In the last 7 kilometers, he can maintain his speed and take the initiative to control the situation by changing speed and rhythm, which is He Jie's magic weapon.
In a high-temperature battle similar to the 2023 Wuhan Marathon, he also defeated all foreign runners and Yang Shaohui and Dong Guojian, two senior seniors, with his ability to "drag" in the future.
In the Olympic Games, where the pace of the first half of the race will not be too fast, as long as He Jie can mobilize his state, we have reason to believe that his ability in the future can make a breakthrough for the Chinese marathon.
The 32-year-old Yang Shaohui is the most experienced and stable athlete in the international arena and the only one of the three who has Olympic experience.
Yang Shaohui's international experience includes the 2019 World Championships in Doha, the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.
Yunnan has no shortage of endurance talent reserves, Yang Shaohui belonged to the coach's "average" players when he was a teenager, and in the competition with the same group of players, he was not outstanding during the Provincial Games. In the early days, he trained hard for the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters of the track races, and he was worried about staying in the team for the first level, and he barely became an official member of the team through the marathon event.
The results of Shouma 227 are not outstanding, and the young players need to sacrifice their own results to lead the core players and contribute to the team in some competitions, which also makes Yang Shaohui's performance on the field has not made much breakthrough.
It wasn't until Doha started the battle for fame in 2019, and then ran 2:11:40 in 2019, and then won the Beijing Marathon and National Championships, and Yang Shaohui truly entered the first echelon of the Chinese men's marathon. For the past five years, he has remained at the top of the ranks.
Able to fight, can top, good will quality - this is the unanimous evaluation of coaches, athletes, and public enthusiasts on Yang Shaohui, after the 2024 Wuxi Marathon, his opponent He Jie once said frankly: "Brother Hui's will quality makes me admire, I know that he is not in the best state, he is really too good." ”
Yang Shaohui, who can be on the field, has a training style that strictly completes the plan formulated by the coach, and sometimes even exceeds the quota. He has been under the guidance of Zhang Guowei throughout his career, and the coach said that Yang Shaohui is an athlete who never needs to worry about him, and his training has never been discounted. In life, he is extremely self-disciplined, occasionally playing games, and spending time with his family and children is almost everything outside of training.
Speaking of which, Yang Shaohui's two Olympic opportunities were "spelled out" in the fierce competition, and it was a game that had a fixed seat and could not be lost.
The outstanding athletes in the same period of the Tokyo cycle include Dong Guojian, Peng Jianhua, Duobujie, Su Guoxiong, Zhao Changhong, Yang Le, etc., Yang Shaohui ranks among the top three; The competition in the Paris cycle is more intense, Dong Guojian, He Jie, Wu Xiangdong, Feng Peiyou, Chen Tianyu, Gao Peng, Sang Ji Dongzhi, etc., are all athletes who have reached the standard level in a stage, and Yang Shaohui once again ranked in the top three.
Yang Shaohui, who is about to run the Olympic Games for the second time, said that he hopes to be more proactive and catch up with the rankings. "Because I may not be so afraid to run in Tokyo for the first time, I have more experience in the past three years, and I know how to control my body and read the situation on the field, so I must go forward and leave no regrets."
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Through the past competitions, it is not difficult to find that as long as it is a game of periodic preparation and targeted pre-game adjustment, Yang Shaohui can always play a stable level, even if he does not win the first place in the competition for some rankings, but there will be no cliff-like collapse in the game process and finishing results.
Since the end of Wuxi in March, there has been no competition, and the preparation cycle for the Paris Olympics is about five months.
"When will I be able to bring an Olympic Vlog? When can I go to the Olympic Village for a photoshoot? ”
When netizens sent these messages, Wu Xiangdong hadn't even broken 210. These slightly funny comments can also show everyone's expectations for the "president" Wu Xiangdong.
Wu Xiangdong is the same year as Yang Shaohui, and his career history and characteristics are also highly similar to him. In the early days, the performance in the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters was not outstanding, although there were no rivals in Anhui Province during the same period, it was difficult to enter the national competition to get on the podium.
Wu Xiangdong's first horse is also 227, which opened in Qinhuangdao in 2015, and fell into a bottleneck period after a few stages of slight improvement. Until 2020, Xiamen broke 220 Dajian, and at the end of the same year, Nanjing ran 2:12:50, which is an amazing progress. After another winter training Xuzhou Marathon, he ran 2:11:36, only 6 seconds short of the Olympic standard at that time.
Until this stage, Wu Xiangdong began to enter the ranks of top athletes, but frankly speaking, he is not the "best" level, and more people did not expect that he could reach the level of competing for Olympic tickets in the current fierce men's competition.
It happened in the second half of 2023, the Beijing Marathon was intended to hit within 210, and Wu Xiangdong, who was moving closer to 208 and 209, failed to reach the goal, but he knew very well the strength of his body, and he did not dare to slack off after winter training, which was 2:08:04 in Osaka, and at the same time wrote his ranking into the top three ranks in history.
Wu Xiangdong, who is willing to share, the progress process is visible to the naked eye, and it is also arduous, so there is a paragraph after the finish line in Osaka: "Three years ago, someone told me that it is impossible to reach the Olympic target of 2:08:10 if you can't run 29 points in 10,000 meters, and I can't score 29 points in 10,000 meters today, and I did it!" ”
An athlete whose early results were not excellent and outstanding, an athlete from Anhui, a province with strong non-traditional endurance events, and an athlete who has been systematically training in Yunnan for more than ten years, has now become a member of the Chinese men's marathon Olympic team and has become the "best" ranks.
During his training in Yunnan, Wu Xiangdong followed Coach Zhang Guowei's plan and was teammates with Dong Guojian and Yang Shaohui, while his coach in Anhui was Zhou Qiaoli. At present, he has also started closed preparations in Yuxi, Yunnan.
Wu Xiangdong's style of play is known for his "steady" and excellent physical distribution, and he has almost the same time in the first half of many games. However, this style has also changed in recent races, and he will be more aggressive and proactive in his pursuit of better finishing numbers, and more daring to follow the first group.
Wu Xiangdong, who has been able to precipitate for a long time and knows how to control his body, is in the golden age of marathon runners in his early 30s, and a competition with world-class masters is in front of him. And the Olympic Games, a comprehensive sports and cultural event, the Olympic Vlog, we can start looking forward to it.
At the beginning of the article, we defined the three-person lineup composed of He Jie, Yang Shaohui and Wu Xiangdong as the strongest Olympic team in the history of the Chinese men's marathon, which was considered from their PB results, recent form, and field experience, among which hard results must be the first factor.
Of course, things can always be viewed in many ways, after all, when Zhang Guowei entered the 1988 Seoul Olympics with a PB of 2:12:17 and Lee Joo Hong entered the 2004 Athens Olympics with a PB of 2:10:46, the level of the world marathon was not as high as it is today.
Striving for the top eight and benchmarking against neighboring Japan has been the goal of China's marathon in recent years. Compared with the lineup composed of Naoki Koyama, Akazaki Akasaki, and Daiko Jie at this Paris Olympics, the gap between us and them in terms of results is not too big. Judging from past experience, it is completely possible to give it a go.
The high temperatures of the Summer Olympics are generally not conducive to marathon performances, and there is a lot of competition for places, and the first half or even the first 30 kilometers are not too fast. Referring to the situation of Chinese players following the lead in the square in the past, the three-man lineup with the strongest hard power is more likely to be able to keep up.
Although we do not yet have the strength to compete with Kenya, Ethiopia and other countries, it is also the responsibility and mission of the three of them to break through the 19th place and go further forward.
The past training mode and experience of the three of them were to stay on the plateau for a long time before the competition, and then go directly to the plains to compete before the competition. The training environment and altitude in Yuxi, Yunnan Province, are also in line with the previous model. From any point of view, everything is in rhythm and on track.
The dazzling Chinese Red will appear at the Paris Olympics in three months' time, and the three hard-working athletes represent the current and historical highest. We are moved by the behind-the-scenes story, and we are looking forward to its competitive significance. They came on stage with their dreams and the expectations of everyone in the Chinese marathon.