Chen Meng From champion to champion

On August 3, 2024, Beijing time, in Hall 4 of the South Paris Arena, Chen Meng finally won the women's singles gold medal in table tennis at the Paris Olympics with a score of 4:2.

This is Chen Meng's second Olympic gold medal in women's singles.

Three years ago, in Tokyo, Chen Meng participated in the Olympics for the first time, and she was a little nervous and nervous. There were no spectators on the field, and she shouted, startling herself. She told herself to focus, and she eventually won the gold medal at the age of 27. At the time, in a post-match interview, she said, "My time has come." This sentence made many people know Chen Meng, but many people felt that she was not humble enough, saying that she was arrogant, and what came to Chen Meng with the celebration was overwhelming Internet violence.

At the same time, for a long time after the end of the Tokyo Olympics, Chen Meng entered a long period of low point due to physical injuries, and did not win a championship for more than 200 days. But all of this eventually shaped into a new Chen Meng - the final scene of the Paris Olympics, those noisy sounds still exist, and even countless viewers can feel the pressure and suffocation through the TV screen, but Chen Meng said that she only thinks that she is shouting to herself, and even like some kind of help, "The more people around me shout, the more they can stimulate my inner fighting spirit."

When she finally successfully defended her title, many netizens commented that it was not until she watched this game that she understood Chen Meng's charm and saw that Chen Meng "has a real strength".

At the end of December 2024, in the deep winter of Beijing, at the filming site of "Person of the Year", the author of "People" met Chen Meng, she was tall and thin, completely devoid of seriousness on the field, and her eyes were always crooked. The habits of the table tennis world are still going on - she is very self-disciplined, in the middle of a busy shoot, she orders a bowl of green salad for lunch, and the staff says that she maintains a very low body fat rate all year round, "a dozen bars". On the table, the biscuits, snacks, and drinks prepared in advance were never touched, and she tasted the box of very sweet bale, which she was pleasantly surprised, but she didn't take a second bite until she left.

That evening, we reviewed the 25 years with Chen Meng with table tennis, the ups and downs of her 30-year-old life, the road from champion to champion, what she experienced, what she lost, what she gained, the following is Chen Meng's narration -

Text: Ling Yi

Edited by Jin Shi

Photography: Shao Di

Makeup and hair|Yu Haichai

Styling|GCK

Producer|#1105

Spoon

refreshing

On August 3, 2024, I won the women's singles table tennis title at the Paris Olympics. So if you want to sum up 2024 in one word, I think it should be harvest and fulfillment.

Now to sum up the two Olympics I have participated in, I played better in Paris than in Tokyo, both in terms of the process of the competition and my overall feeling. The biggest change for me compared to the Tokyo Olympics is that I am more confident and calm.

When I walked into Paris on the first day I started training, I suddenly had a very different feeling, something I hadn't felt in the last three years – as soon as I stepped on that field, on the plastic track, I felt very familiar, as if this was my field, and I felt very confident.

But when I was in Tokyo for the Olympics, I was very worried that I would let up and not know how to control myself, so I told myself every day to be focused, even if there was a little noise around me, a little bit of excitement, I wanted to watch it, but I couldn't watch it, I wanted to focus on the game. It was only after all the races were over that I went to the Olympic Village to have a look.

But this time, from the very beginning, I visited the entire Olympic Village and took a lot of photos in the village. The French are very relaxed, there is coffee at every stop in the village, and I go to each point every day to get a cup of coffee and eat a piece of cake, and the whole person is a lot more relaxed.

When I was in Tokyo, I would lose sleep. At that time, it was not easy to fall asleep after preparing for the match every day, and I would repeat some game videos before going to bed, and I would constantly think about tomorrow's opponent, and when I fell asleep, it was like not falling asleep, and the sleep time was very short. When you arrive in Paris, of course, your nerves are tense, but you will definitely have a few hours of deep sleep to be able to rest yourself well.

There will be no spectators at the Tokyo Olympics. It's not the usual atmosphere. I remember when the game started, I served the first ball, and I screamed, and I scared myself.

In this environment, at first, I was still a little uncomfortable. In the past, the audience interacted with us, and they would applaud and cheer you on for playing a beautiful ball. But when there is no audience in the arena, it is like an open place, only you are playing with your opponent, and the sound of table tennis is very loud, so loud that there is an echo, which will affect some rhythms.

But when you get to the stadium in Paris, it's completely different, there are a lot of people, and the crowd is very loud, and you can't hear your own voice at all when you shout.

On the day of the finals, there were a lot of people in the stadium, and it was impossible for me not to hear the voices of those fans, but the more people around me shouted, the more I was able to stimulate my inner fighting spirit. When I hear those voices, I tell myself that all the sounds, whether they are good or bad, are taken as cheering you on. I could feel that my whole state that day was very top, very excited, I really wanted to play, and I didn't say anything worried, I just wanted to show what I usually practiced and prepared on the field as much as possible.

I think what sustained me in the end was my focus in the moment. I wasn't affected by my surroundings, the sounds around me. I feel like I went into this game with a very clean and very determined state. After winning the competition, I received a lot of congratulations from friends and family. I remember that after the game, when I looked at my phone, the WeChat message notification had become an ellipsis.

When I think back to the moment when I won, I just feel very happy and enjoyed. I'm very proud of myself, in the high-profile arena, when I was not favored, I won such a match, I won the Olympic singles gold medal again, it's so cool. It's just a feeling, wow, like a dream.

Chen Meng in the women's singles final of table tennis at the Paris Olympics, photo source Visual China

Crossing the trough

From Tokyo to Paris, from championship to championship, I went through a long period of low points.

There are a lot of issues that I have to overcome – the skills that need to be updated, the impact of younger athletes, my injuries that I have to overcome, and how to balance my own mentality.

At that time, I had a big boil on my shoulder, which had rotted after the infection. Later it turned into a big hole. My back injury was also very severe. At the beginning of the preparation for the Paris competition, I trained for about 20 minutes, and my waist could not support it. I had to go to treatment and recovery day after day, and the whole process took 3 hours.

I stick to this step 365 days a year, everyone is resting or returning to Beijing after the competition, and there is some time for me to relax, and I still have to do this every day. It's really too painful, but I can't help it, I have to continue, if I don't do this, my waist and arms will be "out of control" the next day, my arms will be unconscious, my back hurts, sometimes I can't get up in bed, and there is no way to ensure training.

In my last match before the Paris Olympics, I played against a little girl from Egypt who was a teenager. When I came on the court, I played with my muscles, but I barely felt anything in my arms during the whole process, just I was very numb, and I didn't feel anything when I held the racket. When I say I don't feel it, I don't have any sensitivity when you hold it. But for a professional athlete, the requirements for sensitivity are very high, because you need to be precise. It was a tough win in the end, and it was reversed after falling behind first.

If I want to win another championship, I have to pay more. I will start with strength training, endurance training, and stick to long-distance running, and give myself some cardiopulmonary stimulation.

There are also the challenges that come with age. I was almost 30 years old, and I was already a veteran athlete for a female athlete at that age, and I could feel that my fitness was really different from when I was 26. For example, I used to train for one day, and my body recovered quickly, and I was able to recover with a little rest. But now, a day of rest is completely insufficient, not to mention, I have to continue to train, rehabilitate and improve my fitness during the rest time.

There are also many voices from the outside world.

In an interview after winning the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, I said, "My time has come." At that moment, I was really excited, very excited, after all, it was my first Olympics, and I felt like it was also an emotional release. It's also very normal for an athlete to have some personality.

Chen Meng in the women's singles final of table tennis at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, photo source Visual China

But there are many people on the Internet who do not accept the saying "my time has come", and there are many rejections. I noticed the voices on the Internet.

Initially, these sounds had an impact on me. Especially in the more than a year since the end of the Tokyo Olympics, moreover, the impact is constantly spreading - playing too hard, was said; It's too easy to play, and people say it's boring. If you can't win, let alone all kinds of overwhelming accusations and abuse, there are all kinds of voices.

For a while, it really affected my game. When I walk into the arena and see a crowd watching, I feel like I can't put my heart and soul into it, and I always feel like you can't lose a single goal. I care a lot about the look of the audience, they may just be communicating normally, but I feel like they're saying I can't; When I won a game, I saw people talking, but I felt like people were still saying I couldn't do it, and I always felt like there were all kinds of voices around me talking about me.

In the comment area and private messages on Weibo, there will also be very excessive remarks. I sometimes go up and really want to fight back against them, and I also feel that these voices are very unfair to me. But in the end, they all endured. I don't think I can ask people what they want to say or think, so more often than not, I digest myself.

There was a time when I was feeling too stressed and desperately wanted to ask for some help. But in the end, it seems as if only I have to find a way out, and no one can really empathize. The way I found it was to pay less attention to the content and information in this area, and during that time, I directly uninstalled the social software, and I didn't read or listen to it.

The most difficult thing is the championship drought of more than 200 days.

After winning the women's singles final at the Singapore Grand Slam in March 2022, I didn't win the title for more than 200 days in the next tournament, big and small, and I lost some foreign battles – if you want to go to the Olympics again, you have to win and get to the top two in the world. And I was in such a bad state that my whole body fell into self-consumption and self-doubt.

We didn't have a counselor on the team, so I talked to the head coach, my family, my friends, and I just wanted to tell me what was going on first, and I felt like I was going to suffocate. I can say anything, I can say whatever I want, my troubles, my injuries, my bad form and I can't win games, my emotions are negative...... I told them, how do I feel like I am so back, why all the bad things are happening here. They'll comfort me, but I'll feel like you're all comforting me, but if people don't comfort me, I'll feel like you're not comforting me (laughs). It's so tangled.

During that time, I didn't even want to hear the sound of table tennis, I didn't want to enter the stadium, I didn't want to see everything about table tennis.

There was a time in the middle where I thought it might be like this, this state of losing might continue, this trough might last for a long, long time, so that's it, don't expect so much from yourself. I probably won't be able to participate in the Paris Olympics, but at first I felt like I couldn't participate in the singles, but then I felt that I might not be able to play in the team event (laughs).

Did you know that often at this time, it may suddenly feel, huh? The training seems to be smoother. Huh? Today's physical condition seems to be a little better than the day before. Then I also try not to let myself compete with myself, stop being harsh and dissatisfied with myself, I hope to make myself more affirmative.

It wasn't until the last match before the Paris Olympics – on May 11, the 2024 World Table Tennis Grand League Saudi Arabia Grand Slam Women's Singles Final, that I finally won the title – and I may not have such high expectations and high standards, and I will feel as if life has given you hope again, and I have regained a little bit of the spirit to win.

Want to win

It's important for athletes to want to win. I've been a competitive person since I was a kid. No matter what I compare with others, I don't want to lose, and if I lose, I shouldn't cry to outsiders, I will endure it, and then quietly go home and cry.

When it comes to playing, I've been very independent since I was a kid and I have a clear goal. Playing table tennis was proposed by myself to my parents. When I was young, when I was naughty and disobedient, my mother would tell me, if you are disobedient today, I will not take you to play. When I hear this, I will be obedient.

I heard from my mother that when I was about 5 and a half or 6 years old, my parents came to the stadium, and the coach told me that the parents were going to stay outside the stadium. There were only a few sparring partners left in the gym, and the coach wanted to see if we kids could train the same way without adult supervision. Sure enough, as soon as the head coach left, the parents were not around, and many children were lazy like sheep, playing under the table, or they would not go on the stage and go directly to pick up the ball. But I still train on the table on my own.

And when I was a child, I first said that I had back pain, and my parents always said, where do you have a waist when you are a child. Later, when they found out that it wasn't acted, I couldn't even wear socks, so they got scared and took me to the hospital for filming. They are also worried, don't do a sport and make a big problem for yourself. After filming, the next morning, they told me very seriously, otherwise we won't fight. I said, why don't you fight? They said, your waist is already so serious, let's go to school now, your waist will not be like this.

I said no, I still have to fight, I want to fight. I think I've always liked this thing since I was a child, and if I choose it, I'll do my best, and if I want to do it, I will do it well, or I won't do it.

Chen Meng when he was a child. Image source Weibo @陈梦-table tennis

I joined the Chinese table tennis women's second team in 2007, when I was the youngest member of the team, only 13 years old. At that time, the National Second Team had to play an intra-team round-robin every month. The top three or four athletes can go to the first team to play exchange matches, and when you play a little bit in the front, you will be on the first team, and you can train with those seniors who you think are very good at the time. If you want to go up and become a world champion, an Olympic champion, you can only be in this team.

But if you finish last in the round-robin and you're going back to the provincial team, it's a big gap. So gradually I started to have a stronger understanding of the concept of winning and losing - winning means that you can get into a better team, you can keep playing, and losing means that you are one step closer to the goal. After experiencing this, my concept of winning and losing will be clearer and more profound.

But in the process of wanting to win, it is also necessary to experience failure. In my own career, every moment after every defeat is important to me, and I think it will make me see myself better and reflect on myself.

I was very impressed by the defeat at the Asian Championships in 2017. At that time, Miyu Hirano had already defeated Ding Ning and Zhu Yuling in a row, and I felt that there was really no way to do it on the court, and people had already been blinded. After losing the first game, I told myself, "It's okay, come again", but in my heart I was, "Why is this ball different from what I thought?" and "It shouldn't be......

Later, I lost 0-3 to Miu Hirano. When I came back to my room in the evening, I sat on the floor and felt like I didn't know anything, I couldn't say anything, I just felt bad.

After the competition, during the closed training period, the stadium played a video of Miu Hirano's victory on a loop. Every day as soon as I enter the stadium, I can see her face after winning against me. It was the first time I had such a clear understanding of what it was like to lose. I used to be happy when I played, but when I lost, I was not happy. But after losing that game, I was very reactive in my heart, and I felt that it had changed all of a sudden, and it was different from my previous state.

In the past, when I lost, I was depressed, and people could see it, but later, I was training myself to try not to let people see my flaws after losing. I can communicate with my opponent normally, and you can't see my mood changing, but I know how uncomfortable I am.

I don't want people to see my vulnerability, I feel like I can handle it.

A strong athlete should not be seen by his opponent in any flaws. There are many things that need to be digested and faced by yourself. So why do you always show your vulnerable side to everyone and win everyone's sympathy? If an athlete is not strong in heart and unstable in his core, how can you have the courage to stand on the field, face opponents, win or lose?

In the 25 years since you become a professional athlete, others have higher and higher expectations of you, and your requirements for yourself are getting higher and higher. I feel lonely sometimes, and it's getting stronger. But this loneliness doesn't make me feel uncomfortable, for example, after every game, I have a lot of reflection and some summaries. I'll stay in my own space and dissect myself thoroughly, especially after a loss, and I really need that kind of time and space to be alone. On the contrary, I feel that there is such loneliness, and I know some of the answers in my heart, after all, there are too many personal propositions that others cannot participate in, and I am also used to being alone in the process.

The 2020 Table Tennis World Cup was a very important victory for me, it was my first world-class women's singles title.

At the time, I was 26 years old, which is not too young for many athletes. As you listed, at this age, Liu Guoliang has retired, and Zhang Yining has also entered the last year of his sports career. But I think age is just a number, it doesn't bind me, you are an athlete for a day, as long as you are still in the team, you are still on the field, you have the possibility of sprinting, you have the opportunity to do a lot of things. I myself was in very good shape during that time.

It was the first time I won the singles title in three major tournaments, and this championship was very important to me, and it was a kind of affirmation for myself at that time. What I affirmed was my own competitive state and breakthrough ability at that time. That momentum sustained me all the way to Tokyo and then to Paris.

In the 2020 Table Tennis World Cup, Chen Meng won the championship. Source: Visual China

Happy

After we came back from Paris, we went to Hong Kong and Macau, and it was a relatively relaxed state, everyone was there to celebrate, and many athletes said to me, oh, so you can laugh. This surprised me.

Inside and outside the arena, the contrast between me is still relatively large. I'm a very lively person, and when my friends are around, I'm always giggling and relaxing, but there are a lot of athletes who think I'm a bit serious in competitions and on the training ground, including in the team.

This seriousness is actually my changed appearance.

When I first started playing as a teenager, I was one of those people who had a lot of fun when I went to the training ground and started to prepare for the activities, and I was more relaxed and laughing. This has something to do with my parents' education for me since I was a child, they are not disappointing, what they ask me is to be happy and happy.

My dad is a very ceremonial person. Many years ago, once at home, I casually said, if the home is also like a Western restaurant outside, don't turn on the lights, three people have a candlelight dinner I don't know what it feels like.

As a result, when I came home again, my dad really prepared a candlelight dinner for me, and my mom told me that he went to many places to buy candles, and wanted to pick the best ones, the ones that tasted harmless to the body when lit, and chose many kinds to try at home one by one. My dad also fried steak that day, and he tried it many times, what kind of meat to buy, how to make it delicious, and then make it for me when I got home, just to satisfy me. They will have a lot of these little details with a sense of ritual for me. On some holidays, they will also give me gifts, and as long as I say it, they will remember it.

Chen Meng, who practiced when he was a child. Image source network

My mom used to play table tennis in the army and was still a little familiar with table tennis. My dad was able to go to my heart in order to communicate with me, to have a common language with me, to be able to communicate, to read a lot of athletes' autobiographies, as well as books about psychology, and to watch a lot of games, and he felt that if he didn't have some understanding and some learning, he just talked to me casually, and didn't talk to my heart, I wouldn't listen (laughs). Looking back on my career, when I was losing, they never accused me of saying why you can't win, but gave me a lot of very positive guidance.

But the joy on the pitch has another meaning.

When I was a teenager, because I was so happy and liked to laugh, my coach talked about me and criticized me many times, saying that I was not focused and committed enough. When I criticize too much, I will slowly restrain myself. As soon as I wanted to laugh, I suddenly remembered that I had to concentrate and didn't dare to laugh. Later, I saw some seniors who were older than me, and when they were preparing for the competition, they were in the same state in most cases - when a person is very focused and engaged in something, he doesn't have so many smiles, and if he is happy, it means that he is okay.

At the beginning, I learned not to laugh and learn to be serious, I think it was still quite cruel, very cruel, too difficult, too tiring, but slowly it naturally formed a state that looked serious.

In these two Olympic Games, Aunt Ni Xialian showed another kind of joy of playing, which is very infectious, which is the charm of table tennis and the charm of Aunt Ni. But for me, we have different aspirations, and I still feel that winning is happy. When a professional athlete doesn't win a championship, do you ask him to be happy? I'm sure he won't be happy.

Some people feel that when winning becomes a task, happiness deteriorates. But I want to say, wouldn't you be happier accomplishing this goal? Every time I win, I'm very happy, and I feel more confident. Having a goal, chasing it, and achieving it again is a kind of joy. The moment you win the Olympic championship, the moment you stand on the podium and take pictures, those smiles are the most beautiful.

Of course, there must have been a lot of unhappy and even very aggrieved times in the process. I remember a time when I was very broken, I would vent my anger, could I not fight? I can't stand it anymore. At that time, my dad told me that he would stop fighting. After he said this, I suddenly felt that I couldn't stop playing, and I didn't want to put down the ping pong ball.

Table tennis has always been a very happy thing for me. I don't think there's anything in my daily life that can compare to the joy that winning brings me. At every stage of my life – I was happy when I first started learning to play, I was happy when I was going up, I was happy when I was winning, and I'm even happier now. Not only the joy of standing on the podium and receiving the award, but also the joy of playing and withstanding the pressure, I think it is table tennis that brings all this happiness. Including now, sometimes I will brush up some video clips of my own games, and when I see my state at that time, I will miss the feeling of being on the field, and I will feel very happy, and it is a steady stream of happiness.

30 years old

For the past 20 years or so, I have barely had time to rest. Especially since the Tokyo Olympics, I have hardly taken a break.

In the past, there was a rule in the team that we would not have a holiday in the year before the Olympics, only during the Chinese New Year, and there would be a five-day holiday with the round-trip trip. But during the preparation for the Olympics, even if I had these five days off, I didn't go home or rest. I think that even though it's only 5 days, I want to make good use of this time and try it myself while others are resting.

I'm homesick too, but I'm more afraid that my heart will fall apart. I know it's important to rest, I just don't dare to take a break. I'm going to keep myself in a state of being compact and focused.

So the feeling of taking a vacation is very unfamiliar. This time, when we returned to Beijing from Paris, the moment the team announced that we would be on vacation, I didn't know what the arrangements should be. In the past, after the competition, after the team meeting, I would think about what I was going to do and what I was going to practice in the next stage, and maybe relax for two days. If I don't go to the stadium, it's already called a break for me.

But this time, I didn't seem to have anything in particular to do, and I didn't know what to do with my future life. When I returned to the room, my mind was blank, and my whole person was clouded. Later, I chose to travel with my parents and friends.

I used to play games and went to a lot of places, various countries and cities, but I always went back and forth to the airport, hotels, and stadiums, and I didn't have the opportunity to really see the specific appearance of a certain country or city and taste some food. This time, I really checked in a lot of cities, went to a lot of attractions, tasted a lot of food, and took a lot of photos. Aside from table tennis, one of my biggest hobbies is taking pictures, and I like to capture the best moments of everyday life, because these moments will probably not have a second time. It's also the first time in my career that I've been traveling with family and friends for so long.

If I had to describe my current state in one word, I would use "calm". The three years from the Tokyo Olympics to the Paris Olympics have also been a big change for me.

Before, I always thought that I needed to adjust everything I could be to the best I could be, and I was the most grounded when the game started. Especially before Tokyo, I had won several titles in a row, and at that time, I thought that it would be difficult for others to beat me only when I was fully adjusted.

However, before the Paris Olympics, I felt more diverse. I may not be in the best shape I think I have, but I can still win in the Circle. Winning like this gives me a sense of security.

Just like after the Tokyo Olympics, I encountered some bad comments and bad voices, but in the end, I was able to digest and shield myself, and I slowly came out of it. This may also be one of my own strengths, and I think about it.

Because it has been long enough, I have slowly figured out that you are a public figure, you have to have psychological endurance, and you have to give others the right to evaluate you. During that time, I also learned a truth - it is useless to explain to people who don't want to hear it, and people who really understand you, you don't have to say anything, they also understand you, I don't need to be internally involved in this kind of thing.

The final maturity and strength of a person's heart is not actually in words, but in the determination when you encounter difficulties in the arena and in life. So, these voices can't beat me at all, just like I said in an interview before, the racket is in my hand, and others can say whatever they like.

To this day, I still remember my moments at the Olympics, and I dream of the stadium when I dream, and that night seems to be still in front of me. may be because in the course of the past few years, I have experienced this, and I feel more precious.

I missed the chance to finish a Grand Slam in the run-up to the Paris Olympics, but I don't think it's a pity. The Grand Slam is just a testament to my results, but in these days of slump, I can see where my potential and ability really are. If it weren't for such a trough, I would have to keep thinking of ways and persevering, and I didn't know if I would have come this far.

I don't want to embellish those days, but the experiences along the way have enriched me more and more, and I can see more and more of my shining side. This may carry more weight than a Grand Slam.

At the beginning of 2024, I celebrated my 30th birthday. Looking back at the age of 20 to 30, I think it was a very memorable and very happy 10 years. This kind of happiness is felt in the training and competition of the national team, and I also enjoy it very much. Turning 30 seems like a new chapter in my life. I enjoy, or rather like, my current state - I am confident, calm, and my whole horizons, horizons, and thinking are broader, and I feel that my 30-year-old self is more attractive and freer than my 20-year-old self.

As for the future, I really didn't want to live without playing table tennis, and the only thing that scared and worried me in life was to leave table tennis. Therefore, the only thing I can be sure of in the future is that I will always love table tennis, and I like the moment when the table tennis ball bounces on the table, the sound is so crisp and so pleasant.