Text | Luo Zhaohui
Edit | Shi Yiying
This may be the best era of China's short track speed skating - the men's team has recovered strongly, and the pattern of many years of yin and yang decline has been completely reversed; but it may also be the worst era of China's short track speed skating - the rise of European and American powers, and the competition for deer has become the main theme of this project.
2018 is the 12th year that Li Yan has taken over the Chinese short Taoist whip. In the past 12 years, she has left three Winter Olympics with a good record of 7 gold, 5 silver and 1 bronze. She is a legend, a creator and a changemaker of this era.
12 years, is a student to fully experience elementary school, junior high school and high school, followed by a beautiful university, a bright future. Many people thought that Li Yan had reached the time to leave, but Li Yan chose to stay, coaching Chinese short track for twelve years, and she finally decided to continue walking with her children.
1
If he hadn't come back as a coach, Li Yan might have been promoted to director of the tax bureau.
Nine to five, a comfortable and prosperous life. Maybe she would sit in a separate office to approve documents and handle official business, and from time to time there would be a secretary who poured tea and water and printed materials. After work, the family of three reminisced about the world, occasionally walked to the ice rink, and relived the glory days of their athletes with their daughters...
Li Yan's story began in the 1980s. At the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, at the age of 20, she won 1 gold and 2 bronze in short track speed skating, which was still a performance event at the time, and broke the world record twice. In order to commemorate this feat, the organizing committee specially designed a poster based on Li Yan, with the four characters of "Dragon Soaring", which may be the only poster with Chinese characters written on it at the Winter Olympics.
Since then, short-track speed skating has been listed as one of the 18 key projects in the country, and Li Yan, who has just returned to China, has also received heroic support.
Li Yan recalled: "The Mudanjiang Sports Committee in my hometown gave me a whole convertible, the mayor on the left and the secretary of the municipal party committee on the right, I stood in the middle, and the masses also played 'Learn from Comrade Li Yan!' ''s tagline. The province also gave me the title of outstanding young man and March 8th Red Flag Bearer, and also let me go to the university to give a lecture..."
Behind the glory is Li Yan's extraordinary growth path.
According to her sister Li Qi, "My sister has been shopping since she was a child, and when she goes out to play, she is also on the house and the tree, stubborn and has a very hard personality." In her view, Li Yan's personality is like a mother, although the mother is just an ordinary business system worker, but she hopes that her children "do not do it, do it best."
Many years later, Li Yan also joked with his friends: "Born in ancient times, I must be Mulan and Mu Guiying who do not let their eyebrows be shaved." ”
In the fourth grade of primary school, the strong physique exercised by climbing trees made Li Yan look at the local short track coach. When she first entered the ice rink, she could not slide with the flat blade of an ice knife, but she had already pedaled the ice vigorously and had a tenacious style. After several years of training, Li Yan slid all the way from the Mudanjiang City Sports Team to the Heilongjiang Provincial Team, like a rising star.
However, the nova almost fell prematurely before it could glow. In a race, the eager to win Li Yan accidentally slid out of the track, and the huge centrifugal force made her hit the baffle of the field hard, causing the knee muscles of her left leg to break completely. You know, the left leg as a support leg is regarded as the "second life" of the ice athlete, and injury to this extent almost means the end of the career.
Li Yan, who was so strong, did not give up. Li Qi revealed: "My sister's injured left leg has been stitched more than 40 times, but the wound has not yet healed, and she has begun to resume training. During weight-bearing squat training, the 'one' glyph wound on the knee was opened again, and once the squat was bleeding outwards, it had to be sutured a second time. For a long time afterwards, Li Yan did not dare to wear a short skirt, because the continuous opening and stitching had left more than ten centimeters of horrific scars on her legs.
Even after removing the thick plaster cast, Li Yan's left leg muscles were still severely atrophied. So at 5 a.m. the next morning, she showed up early on the playground and continued her recovery training by jumping on one foot. After jumping for a year, Li Yan's right leg has become 3 centimeters thicker than his left leg.
The subsequent story does not need to be repeated, Li Yan successfully made a comeback through continuous persistence, and was selected for the national team a year later, followed by the competition for gold and silver in the Olympic arena...
Whenever he recalls this past, Li Yan always firmly believes: "Success is one percent genius plus ninety-nine percent sweat, and for any world champion, this is a law that will always apply."
2
At the beginning of his retirement, Li Yan's life was far less exciting than that of the athlete period. She still loves short-track speed skating, but her hometown of Mudanjiang lacks sufficient development funds. Later, the local department store generously donated money, provided that Li Yan would act as an "image spokesperson" at the department store counter.
This slightly nonsensical experience made Li Yan fall into contemplation - learning a science to lay the foundation for finding a good job in the future may be more realistic. So in September 1994, the international finance major of Dongbei University of Finance and Economics became her first stop after retiring from the military.
The poorest foundation and the oldest age, Li Yan's study experience is destined not to be easy, which is especially evident in English classes. In the past, Li Yan was the most daring English speaker among the team members; however, in the university classroom, she listened to the pure pronunciation of a group of top students and instantly became "dumb".
The tenacity cultivated during the athlete period made Li Yan survive. She stipulates that she can only spend 100 yuan a week, and most of the time she must spend in the library. In the past four years, Li Yan, who is 10 years older than his classmates, has never hung up the subject, and his English has reached the level of communication barrier-free.
After graduating with a bachelor's degree, Li Yan was assigned to the Dalian Municipal Taxation Bureau, which corresponded to his major, as a deputy division-level section member. But Li Yan always ridiculed himself for not being suitable for that job, "When I was doing taxes at the window, I always stamped people and didn't charge money, and my salary was almost lost." ”
The turning point came at the National Junior Roller Skating Competition that summer. Considering that roller skating is similar to short track speed skating, the Dalian Municipal Sports Committee thought of Li Yan. As a result, under her short-term tutelage, the previously mediocre team entered the top three for the first time. Seeing the children's happy smiles on the podium, Li Yan suddenly cried - at that moment, she found that the love for ice and snow in her heart had never faded.
Since then, Li Yan has volunteered to mentor skating children, and her biggest dream at that time was to set up a skating club in Dalian. Later, they really found an ice rink, and Li Yan not only paid for it out of his own pocket to help maintain it, but also personally polished the ice knives for the children.
Taking advantage of a meeting in Beijing, Li Yan came alone to the First Body Skating Gym, which was the most familiar training base during her athlete years. As soon as you enter the venue, the cool breath suddenly soaks into every sweat pore. At the moment when the contestants sprinted, Li Yan screamed with the audience around him, as if he had returned to the burning years...
The reverie was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone: on that phone, Li Yan heard the words Slovakia, the national team, the head coach and so on. Her heart beat faster again.
It was 1999, and the Slovak sports team that came to China to exchange hoped that China would send a coach to coach its short track speed skating team. However, Slovak, where hockey is strong, is a "desert" of short-track speed skating, so the offer was rejected several times, until Lan Li, then deputy director of the Winter Center, dialed Li Yan's phone.
Returning to the ice rink from the tax office, a whole new life course was started by this phone call.
3
In February 2005, Lang Ping was officially inaugurated as the manager of the American women's volleyball team. In the restaurant at the Colorado Training Base, the "Iron Hammer" solemnly announced to the media: "I am not the first Chinese to coach the American team, the first to be there." ”
Speaking of which, Lang Ping's finger pointed to Li Yan, who was sitting next to him, who had been in charge of the U.S. short track speed skating team since 2003.
Prior to that, Li Yan had shown good coaching ability, she spent 1 year to bring Slovakia into the Winter Olympics, and also led Austria out of the trough in just 10 months.
But as the first foreign coach in the history of the American team, the players are still suspicious of this unknown Chinese woman, the first of which is the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics champion Apollo. Whenever Li Yan finished the training task, Apollo would always ask "Why". This word is accompanied not by questioning, but by deep questioning.
"Crazy Woman" is Apollo's unique title for Li Yan. The cause was a training session, Li Yan asked each team member to lead a lap, and Apollo did not listen to the command. Li Yan suddenly lost his temper and asked all the team members to stop and wait for him, but the latter had no choice but to give in. It is also the crazy and tough persistence again and again that the members of the American team gradually understand Li Yan's good intentions.
At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, south Korea's short-track massacre was rife, with only two of the eight gold medals falling on the side – one of which was won by Li Yan's Apollo, while the other belonged to the budding Wang Meng. No one expected that the fate of these two women would be firmly entangled.
At this time, it was another phone call from Director Lan Li. This time, instead of sending her away, he asked her to return to China to prepare for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Li Yan, who received the call, was not as ecstatic as she was 7 years ago, and being the head coach of the Chinese team was originally in her plan, but she did not expect this day to come so quickly. Li Yan said: "As a coach outside the system, if you have the opportunity to be a coach of the Chinese national team, it is also an honor and a manifestation of value. Would love to give it a try. ”
However, going to the appointment means that the stability and warmth that you have just received will be gone. After all, the American short track has already set up generous conditions for Li Yan to renew his contract, her husband has also established a family here, and her daughter, who is less than two years old, is eager to be fed, and each team member is inseparable.
"30 seconds after I handed over my resignation report to team Usa, Apollo called me in an agitated tone and asked me why I was going to China. Every member of the U.S. team called me and was reluctant to let me leave. Recalling the scene at that time, Li Yan was still full of emotion, "My heart is also very conflicted, and I even hope that I can split into two, but I know that I must make a choice, which is an important step in my life." I chose to return to China because I was trained in China. ”
From negotiating and signing a contract back to China, to flying back to the United States to resign, Li Yan only took a week.
4
At that time, Li Yan was a special one - she was an authentic Chinese, but she held the titles of "foreign teacher" and "returnee" and took the annual salary of the US dollar system. Perhaps it is the special identity of "export to domestic sales" that dooms Li Yan to start a new coaching process in doubt.
When he took office, the Chinese short track speed skating team was in a trough because of the retirement of famous generals such as Yang Yang and Li Jiajun. Although in the same year's Turin Winter Olympics, Wang Meng, who fought alone, struggled to save the gold medal in the women's 500 meters, but the results of 1 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze were difficult to be satisfied, and the replacement of the new and old of the whole team was also far away.
As a result, Li Yan launched a drastic reform. In addition to the new coaching team, Virgo also brought short-term, high-intensity, large-volume "devil training", and the nickname of "stepmother" has spread throughout the team since then. In addition, in the early days of coaching, unconscious language habits always made Li Yan always pop out of English, and the Chinese spoken were all upside-down sentences, which added disgust to the team members.
In particular, the "first sister" Wang Meng, since Li Yan took office, she has looked at this new coach with colored glasses. On the one hand, Li Yan's arrival made Wang Meng, who had brought many of his mentors back to the provincial team, and it was difficult for Wang Meng, who had heavy feelings, to accept for a while; on the other hand, Li Yan devoted more energy to guiding Zhou Yang, Liu Qiuhong and other small team members, and the competitive Wang Mao was naturally unwilling.
The conflict between master and apprentice broke out in the Early 2007 Changchun Asian Winter Festival. After returning home from the 1500m final, the pair did not high-five each other, but looked like strangers. In the regular interview that followed, Wang Meng, who was holding a bronze medal, initially said that "there is nothing to say", but after taking a deep breath, she decided not to keep it.
"The coach didn't have any tactics in place before the final, just said to me, 'You know how to compare,' and said something like that. So there was no tactic in the game, the three men went up and didn't form a combination at all, there was no team strength, and I felt that the tactics of the national team were not suitable for me. Without waiting for the reporter to ask, Wang Meng released a harsh word, "After the end of this Asian Winter Games, I will apply to return to the local team for training." ”
This "shelling" incident caused Wang Meng to be banned for 3 months. In the subsequent World Championships, the leaderless Chinese team only ended with 2 silver and 2 bronze, and Li Yan's first year of coaching in China also ended hastily in the shadow of the loss of the coach.
Whether or not wang meng can tame this "fierce horse" is directly related to his coaching prospects, so during the vacation, Li Yan has been reflecting: "After I came, Wang Meng did not understand me, did not understand what I could bring to her, this doubt is very normal, the Asian Winter Storm is the problem that occurs when the manager and excellent athletes run into each other." Shouldn't I be softer in my time with the players than tough as I used to be? Thinking of this, Li Yan decided to communicate with his heart and use his "moisturizing and silent" action to move the team members and eliminate stereotypes.
At the beginning of the new season, Li Yan calmly greeted the returning Wang Meng. Observing that Wang Meng's sliding posture was easy to make the waist accumulate into injuries, Li Yan deliberately said to Wang Meng in front of the whole team: "A player with good explosive power like you does not need to be so sharp all the time." When you feel that the training intensity is enough, you can not slip. Treated differently by Li Yan, Wang Meng's heart was warm, and the subsequent training was more positive.
At the same time, Li Yan also tapped Wang Meng's potential from a technical point of view. In view of the characteristics of good slippery feeling and poor speed and endurance, she used tailor-made special training to help Wang Meng break through the bottleneck. So in the 2008-09 season in China, Wang Meng not only broke the original world record he set three times, but also began to make breakthroughs in the middle and long distance events.
The overall improvement of achievements is the best lubricant to break the gap, and Wang Meng's "fierce horse" was thus tamed by Li Yan. In fact, Li Yan, who was born in 1966, was originally a horse, and she did not expect that 40 years later, she and Wang Meng's second horse would meet. The pair rode side by side, forming the strongest synergy of Chinese ice knives.
5
At the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Wang Meng rode in the women's 500m and easily won the gold medal. Then there was the moving scene, Wang Meng rushed to the front of the baffle and kowtowed to coach Li Yan.
In fact, the performance of The Chinese Short Track at that tournament has only just begun...
Time back to the beginning of the season. In the first 4 World Cup matches, Li Yan has led the women's team to win 15 gold medals, in addition to Wang Meng, who won 12 golds, Zhou Yang, Liu Qiuhong, Zhao Nannan, Sun Linlin, Zhang Hui and other young players have also emerged. At the 2009 World Championships, the Chinese women's team under the leadership of Li Yan pushed South Korea to win the championship, breaking the opponent's six-year gold monopoly in one fell swoop.
In September of the same year, the World Cup in China started again, and it was only half a year before the Vancouver Winter Olympics. On the ice, Wang Meng, who was already the captain, led his teammates to send unexpected and belated birthday wishes to Li Yan. On the banner of celebration, it reads "Happy Birthday to the Head of the Church, You Have Worked Hard".
"Everyone says you're a woman of steel, are you crying?" Wang Meng said to Li Yan, "Make a wish!" "I wish you all know!" Li Yan burst into tears of happiness.
Truly coming to the Vancouver Arena to realize his wishes, Li Yan returned to the state of "Iron Lady". She always climbed on the high protective cushion to command wholeheartedly, sometimes calm as water, sometimes passionate as fire, people did not know what kind of energy was contained in this petite body.
Wang Meng's 500-meter first gold, although the kneeling scene has become a talking point, this gold medal is extremely thrilling. Li Yan said: "That race started several times and was full of suspense. Moreover, Wang Meng's knife was kicked several times in the game, but fortunately, it was not the blade that was kicked, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable. ”
In the 1500m final, when Wang Meng missed the foul, all the burden fell on the shoulders of 18-year-old Zhou Yang. In the lounge, Li Yan told Zhou Yang, "You have to fight, and if you can get the first few, it will be successful." In the end, Zhou Yang fought one against three in the Sino-Korean confrontation, laughing from the eight-man final to the end, which is also one of the most valued gold medals in Li Yan's coaching career.
In the 3000-meter relay final, the pace of the Chinese women's team winning consecutive championships almost came to an abrupt end. When South Korea crossed the line before China, Li Yan stubbornly raised his arms to the arbitrator's seat, followed by a long wait. When the on-site referee informed the South Korean team of the foul, Li Yan jumped into the air without mercy. At this moment, she has led the Chinese team beyond history to become the manager who won the most gold in the Winter Olympics.
In the 1000m final, "double insurance" Wang Meng and Zhou Yang jointly competed. In the case of Zhou Yang's starting error, Wang Meng, as the captain, took the lead in hitting the line with a slight advantage of 0.111 seconds, winning the most difficult and meaningful victory in his life. After the game, the "Four Golden Kings" hung the gold medal around Li Yan's neck: "Thank you to my coach Li Yan, the woman who changed the history of short track speed skating in China. ”
As a result, the Chinese short track speed skating team led by Li Yan won all four gold medals in the women's event for the first time. In the history of the Winter Olympics, the previously strongest South Korean team can only win three gold medals in a single Olympic Games.
That spring, "anti-Korean" almost became the epitome of Chinese sports – first the Chinese men's football team broke the embarrassment of 32 years of korean invincibility in the East Asian Cup; then the world Go champion battled the three-game final, and Kong Jie kept a clean sheet on South Korea's first man, Lee Chang-ho, to win the championship. Of course, the most enjoyable thing is the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Li Yan's Chinese short track won four gold medals, interpreting the main theme of "anti-Korean" to the fullest.
6
Li Yan's second four years of coaching Chinese short track still started with the storm, and the protagonist was also Wang Meng.
In June 2011, the short-track speed skating team training in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, was drunk late at night, and then physically clashed with patrol guards, with captain Wang Meng at the heart of the incident. A month later, the team moved to Qingdao, Shandong Province to continue the training, and Wang Meng and 6 other team members returned late because of drunkenness, and wang Chunlu, the leader in charge of checking the bed, had a physical conflict. Afterwards, Wang Meng was injured and hospitalized, and Wang Chunlu was slightly concussed, and this "infighting incident" caused an uproar in the entire Chinese sports world.
It is reported that the reason why Wang Meng and others returned late was to accompany Li Yan's husband to drink, and Li Yan chose to be silent in the "infighting incident". And when Wang Meng was expelled from the national team because of this incident, Li Yan was silent again, which completely annoyed Wang Meng, and she shouted to Li Yan: "Coach, you have disappointed me too much, this is the last time I call you a teacher." ”
Faced with another question, Li Yan strongly supported Wang Meng, pointing out that Wang Chunlu was more responsible for the "infighting incident". In her opinion, it is Wang Chunlu's way of working that directly affects the unity of the team.
Considering the long-term preparation needs, the General Bureau could only "sacrifice" the leader Wang Chunlu in the end and transfer him away. So Li Yan exchanged Wang Meng's trust again, and at the same time resolved another dangerous situation in the team.
Compared to the storm's great discount on the summer training process, Li Yan was more worried about the physical and mental trauma of the team. After all, the once invincible ace master became the object of public opinion overnight, and the pain in it Was deeply believed by Li Yan. During that time, she locked herself in the dormitory and silently wept, while holding meetings, reporting, and encouraging the team members.
"The team suffered a major injury, and after the big injury, it needs to recover, physically and mentally, but after the injury, people always have to get back on their feet." Li Yan told the team members, "Only the results can prove that we are a strong team, and the Chinese short track speed skating team must not be planted in my hands!" ”
Since then, the state of the Chinese short track speed skating team has gradually picked up. At the end of 2011, the short track speed skating World Cup shanghai station, in the absence of Wang Meng and Zhou Yang, the team won 3 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze, ranking first in the medal table.
Three months later, the World Championships were also played in Shanghai. Walking up to the ice, Li Yan asked the team members to form a circle and shout "We must do it." In the end, Li Yan's team used 4 gold and 2 silver to justify their names.
A year later, in the World Cup in Hungary, Wang Meng made a strong comeback, and the Chinese team was able to dominate with 5 golds. Li Yan's second four years of coaching Chinese short track finally ushered in the moment when the clouds opened and the fog cleared.
7
Just 23 days before the opening of the Sochi Winter Olympics, God and Li Yan made a cruel joke again.
At the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center that day, Li Yan was instructing Fan Kexin's movements, and then a cry of surprise made her quickly turn around - only to see the captain Wang Meng collapsed on the ice, covering his right ankle with pain, looking not lightly injured.
In the hours that followed, Li Yan kept praying in his heart for "it's okay" and "small injuries", but in the end he still waited for bad news. According to Liu Yasen, a sports medicine expert at the Chinese weightlifting team, Wang Meng's serious ankle injury must be reduced and fixed through surgery, and it takes at least 6-8 weeks to recover. This means that the "Four Golden Kings" did not qualify for the Sochi Winter Olympics.
In those days, Li Yan almost shed a lifetime of tears, and she and the assistant teacher Woods sighed: "The way to great patience is through great trials(The heavens will descend upon the Si people, they must first suffer their hearts).How much trial do we have to endure?" ”
When the day's training was over, Li Yan, who was ready to leave, heard a "bang bang" sound coming from the ice, short and heavy. Looking around, it turned out that Li Jianrou, a mid-length event player who was going to replace Wang Meng in the 500 meters, practiced starting over and over again. Li Yan's heart ached uncontrollably, "You come down, you can't run anymore." Li Jianrou, who walked off the ice rink, was full of tears, and the two embraced each other and cried.
At that time, the two masters and apprentices and even the entire Chinese short track knew that they had no way to retreat, only a surprise and a battle.
In the women's 500m race, the outside world one-sidedly pinned China's hopes on world champion Fan Kexin, and even Liu Qiuhong, who was experienced in the competition, but it was the most inconspicuous Li Jianrou who finally broke through the obstacles.
In the quarter-finals, Li Jianrou and the three major winning favorites Shen Shixi, Fang Tana and Maltes were divided into the "death group", and as a result, the 27-year-old ranked second, squeezing Shen Shixi and Maltes to advance; in the semifinals, the three Chinese players were divided into the same group, Fan Kexin slipped and slipped, Liu Qiuhong was weak in his future, and Li Jianrou was promoted again. In the final, when the other three players fell at the same time, the most outspoken Li Jianrou achieved grassroots legends in a dramatic way.
At the moment of winning the championship, the sour, sweet and bitter spicy along the way surged into his heart, making Li Yan collapse instantly: "Before crossing the finish line, I was already in tears!" She could smile and congratulate the South Korean coach after the loss of the women's relay, or she could be calm when Zhou Yang defended the 1500m title, but at that time, she was embarrassed.
In the absence of Wang Meng, Li Yan and her players won 2 gold, 3 silver and 1 bronze in Sochi, and 6 medals were the most in the history of a single Winter Olympics. Not only that, the long-sluggish Chinese men's team has also re-emerged under the tutelage of Li Yan, and new stars such as Wu Dajing and Han Tianyu have stood on the podium.
While reaching the top in Vancouver is a blessing in disguise, in Sochi, victory after experiencing adversity is even sweeter.
8
When Li Yan gave happiness and sweetness to the Chinese team, she could only apologize to her daughter Bella.
Bella was born in the United States in July 2004, but two years later Li Yan returned to China to teach, and the family could only live in three places — her husband continued to work in the United States, she was stationed in Beijing for a long time to train, and her father-in-law and mother-in-law lived in Dalian with their granddaughter.
Two years old, the age when a child needs his mother to be by his side the most, Bella can only go to Beijing to see her mother once every few months. The long-term gathering of less and more has also built a high wall between Li Yan and her daughter, and the kindergarten teacher even thinks that Bella is a child of a single-parent family.
Once Li Yan missed her daughter too much, so she asked on the phone: "Do you want your mother to go home with you?" Bella replied, "I don't care." This made Li Yan's heart mixed.
"The glory is temporary, but the growth is a lifetime, and I don't want to miss the growth of my daughter." After the Vancouver Olympics, Li Yan once looked forward to having another child after 4 years, "I didn't see Bella grow up day by day, but I hope that I can personally raise her brother or sister, which is also a kind of compensation." But in the end, staying in office backfired.
People often can't perceive the passage of time until they are shocked by the growth of the people around them. For Li Yan, Bella may be the one who reminds her that time has flown by.
Every time he went abroad to compete, Li Yan would deliberately choose pink gifts to bring to his daughter, thinking that Little Bella must like it. But the last time, Bella was not very interested: "Mom, I don't like this now." At this moment, Li Yan suddenly found that her daughter was no longer a little girl with "pink control", she had entered the cardamom age.
In fact, four years ago, Bella would directly ask her mother when she would retire. And now, as she grows up, Bella has long understood that her mother's heart is always on this ice rink.
In September 2017, on Li Yan's 51st birthday, her daughter brought a cake to her mother, just as Wang Meng and the team members walked into the ice rink with celebratory banners 8 years ago. Bella said: "The 8 candles on the cake represent the 8 events of short track speed skating, and also represent the daughter's wish that her mother will always be 18 years old." Li Yan, who was overjoyed, took his daughter into his arms.
Li Yan, who claims to have missed half of her daughter's growth time, will still feel guilty, but she does not regret it. "When I came back from the United States in 2006, I took every step without regrets and listened to my heart.".
9
Four years after four years, after each Olympic Games, it is Li Yan who is faced with the choice to stay. After the Sochi Winter Olympics 4 years ago, Li Yan once had a retreat, but this love in her heart made her go and return. After the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the 51-year-old is hard to hide, probably more ferocious than any other.
In this competition, the Chinese team, whose overall strength has declined, has encountered controversial penalties one after another, and finally only won 1 gold and 2 silver. Fortunately, on the closing day, Wu Dajing won the first gold of the Winter Olympics for the Chinese short track speed skating men's team, ending Li Yan's third Olympic cycle with a breakthrough.
In the days when there was no gold medal and there was injustice, Li Yan almost single-handedly controlled the overall situation. She has to appease the team members, deal with the media, and argue for the justification of every controversy. To a large extent, today's Li Yan represents the entire Chinese short track speed skating.
The taste behind this, Li Yan knew bitterly. From the first day she entered the Olympic Village, she was greeted by insomnia almost every night. "Take a sleeping pill at 2 a.m. every day and get some sleep. Wake up at 5 o'clock and take another sleeping pill and sleep for a while. ”
So at the end of March, when the last event in his term, the Short Track Speed Skating World Championships, ended in Montreal, Canada, Li Yan said: "It is time to rethink."
"Thank you so much and grateful to have so many great athletes practicing with me for so long, it's time to rethink. Bless Beijing and hope that there is a better coaching team to lead the athletes to continue to move forward. ”
From this intriguing answer, some people interpreted that Li Yan seemed to have some changes, perhaps leaving office.
In addition to the increasing pressure, the new identity of the president of the Chinese Skating Association has also become a potential reason for Li Yan's "departure". Since then, she has not only undertaken the athletic performance of the short track speed skating team, but also the performance improvement and sports promotion of figure skating and speed skating. Especially when the time enters the Beijing Winter Olympic cycle, Li Yan is bound to invest more energy in his new position.
It is understood that Li Yan will be the head coach of the Chinese team to dominate the overall situation, and the newly hired head coach will be responsible for training, competition and other front-line work. As for the selection of the head coach, Zhang Jing of Hungary and An Yulong of Russia are within the scope of inspection.
In the end, more people need to participate in the future and share the training of China's short track. Especially in the context of the competition for the deer, the training for athletes can only be more refined. Whether it is from the model or the selection, Li Yan needs to think carefully, this holiday is destined to be a tiring holiday...
Came to the crossroads of life again, but Li Yan finally chose to stay, which is a more courageous decision, but also means more difficulties, but this is in line with Li Yan, the real choice of this Chinese sports wonder woman - in the face of difficulties, in the face of challenges, only forward!