Olympic champion Chen Ding's comeback: "After working hard, I won't regret it"

Source: People's Daily

In his own words, Olympic champion Chen Ding just walked a very "humiliating" game. In the men's 20 km race walk, the 2012 London Olympic gold medalist was framed twice this time.

In the early morning of July 29, heavy rain suddenly fell in Jinzhou, Liaoning Province. Chen Ding does not like to play in such weather conditions, this year's summer training is going well, and he is full of expectations for the first official game in nearly a year. However, it backfired, and within a few laps of the start of the race, he was left behind by several leading players. The time of 1 hour, 29 minutes and 42 seconds was nearly 10 minutes slower than that of the winning Wang Kaihua, and there was also a big gap from the 1 hour and 22 minutes he expected.

Eight years ago, Chen Ding defeated then-world champion Borchin to win the gold medal in the men's 20 km race walk at the London Olympics. Since 2013, Chen Ding has left more frustration than joy on the field. At the 2015 Beijing Athletics World Championships and the 2016 Rio Olympics, his performance was sluggish. Chen Ding failed to appear at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics in London, and his performance at the 13th National Games did not improve. After that, he retired briefly, faded out of the arena, and became a race walking referee.

In the second half of 2018, Chen Ding resumed training. Naturally, I returned to the olympics in Tokyo. At that time, after stepping on the training ground again every other year, Chen Ding found that there had been a change in many aspects. His muscle strength, elasticity deteriorated, and his intense training brought new injuries; his ability to recover was hard to come by. "I used to think about what the class must achieve before training, and now when I think about training, I have a feeling of 'wow, my head hurts'." Chen Ding said half-jokingly.

However, Chen Ding was not willing to easily accept defeat. He was weaker than before, and now his opponents were stronger, and he needed to make up for it with training, and with a weekly training volume of one hundred and seventy or eighty kilometers, he gritted his teeth and walked down. Coach Sun Li'an encouraged him from time to time, "I can't reduce the amount because you have difficulties, and the reduction is also irresponsible for you." Since you choose to stay on the field, you have to go beyond the past. The opponents at the Tokyo Olympics are even stronger than they were at the London Olympics, so you have to exceed your training level that year. ”

"First of all, we must try to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics." Chen Ding said, "No matter what the result is, if you have worked hard, you will not regret it." ”

People's Daily (2020-07-30, 15th edition)