The one-year postponement of the Tokyo Olympics is underway. The podium of the Olympic Games is where everyone's eyes come together, but outside the podium, there are some small things happening. They are humorous, moving, or tender; they interpret the Olympic spirit in another way.
Wen | Dai Minjie Xu Shuang
Edit | Shen Shi
Picture | Visual China
1
The world's most beautiful Lu Xiaojun
The Chinese weightlifting champion has captured many international fans because of his beautiful muscles
On July 31, in the men's 81 kg weightlifting event at the Tokyo Olympic Games, China's Lu Xiaojun won the gold medal and set a new Olympic snatch record. This is the 21st gold of the Chinese sports delegation. Lu Xiaojun, 37, is the oldest weightlifting champion in Olympic history.
After the game, Lu Xiaojun was surrounded by staff, and the foreign referee even asked him for an autograph and a group photo. People found out that Lu Xiaojun had a huge fan base abroad. Every training video on his largest foreign video website has been played millions of times, and the most played video has reached more than 4 million in 2019. He is so popular with power enthusiasts, supposedly because the muscles are so beautiful. Some people have commented that his arm span and height almost constitute a perfect square.
Some people even learned Chinese in the comments: the name Xiaojun means a small army in Chinese, and yes, he alone is a unit. The comments were full of praise for him. Some say he squatted faster than I fell. In Lu Xiaojun's video, he used his back muscles to easily clip pens, clip coins, and finally clip an A4 paper. Therefore, Lü Xiaojun has gained a nickname - the strength of men represents absolute beauty, then Lü Xiaojun is a peerless beauty.
Lv Xiaojun
2
It is a great joy to be able to swim again on such a stage
The Water Queen of Japan returned to her stage
Rihanako Ikee, the japanese water queen who holds many records in Japan and even Asia, did not expect to be able to come to the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Chi Jiang became the first swimmer to win six gold medals at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, and the following year, at the age of 19, she was diagnosed with acute lymphoid leukemia. She suspended all training and competitions and was hospitalized. Chemotherapy and stem cell transplants left her hair loss and loss of appetite. She could not get out of bed, vomited several times a day, and could only get as much nutrition as possible through intravenous injection to protect the athlete's body.
At 1.7 meters tall and weighing 57 kilograms, she still lost more than a quarter of her weight, her arms became weak and weak, and she could not even do the pull-ups that she had mastered at a young age. She told her mother, who was with her at the bedside, that for the first time, she felt so hard to be alive.
After being discharged from the hospital, Chi Jiang set the 2024 Paris Olympics as his goal. She began rehabilitation, and in addition to her daily physical therapy, physical training and fitness, she also had dietary training, asking for extra meals, gaining weight back, and eating until she wanted to throw up. Chi Jiang, who once only wanted to break records again and again, could not even withstand simple sit-ups and arm training, and it became her mantra that could not be done.
The coexistence and struggle with powerlessness allowed Ikee to recover faster than she expected, and in August 2020, she returned to the field, and six months later, at the All Japan Olympic Trials, she qualified to represent Japan in the Tokyo Olympic relay.
On July 24, Chi Jiang and three teammates competed in the preliminary olympic women's 4x100m freestyle relay. Although he was unable to advance to the final due to a difference of 0.27 seconds, it was already a major victory for Chi Jiang. After the game, Chi Jiang sighed: I really feel happy to be able to swim again on such a stage. (Editor's note: Add a moment - on August 1, China's Zhang Yufei waited by the pool after a relay swim.) At the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games, they were rivals on the butterfly track and Chi Jiang was the champion. Chi Jiang came, Zhang Yufei came forward and hugged her, and she said, See you next year, next year's Asian Games meeting. ）
Rikako Ikee
3
Together, we made our dreams come true
Best friends share gold medals
On the night of August 1, in the men's high jump final at the Tokyo Olympics, the referee came to Qatar's Mutaz Balhem and Italy's Giammako Tambele with a scoreboard and told them that they both had the same score. Previously, both men had jumped 2.37 meters at one time and failed in three attempts to jump 2.39 meters.
Can we have two gold medals? Balsim asked. After receiving an affirmative reply from the referee, the excitement of the two players was indescribable: they looked at each other, grabbed each other, threw themselves away, and then Tambelly hugged Balhem's neck and jumped on top of him.
Then Tambel began to run wildly, falling to the ground, covering his face with his hands, rolling around. Balsim waved his arms and walked toward his coach. Tambelle finally got up, took a few steps and got down on his knees, holding his head in both hands and continuing to roll over. Balsim leaned over the coach's shoulder and cried in sunglasses. In a later interview, Balsim said he was one of my best friends, both on and off the field. Together, we made our dreams come true. This is true sportsmanship.
During the interview, Tambelle had been holding a foot-fixing plaster cast and said he was going to hang the gold medal on it. 20 days before the 2016 Rio Olympics, Tambelle accidentally injured his ankle and was forced to abandon the game. This is the plaster cast he hit that year. From injuries and setbacks in 2016 to the Tokyo Olympics, Tambele has not forgotten balheem's encouragement, saying that the most important thing Balhem taught him was to jump for himself, not for anyone else.
After sharing the Olympic gold medal, the two wore the flags of their respective countries for an interview, and Tambelle said the experience was a great movie story to tell to his son. The next moment he suddenly realized that he did not have a son. Balhem did have one—Balchim said, you can tell my son.
4
She was lost in the air
The American Gymnastics star dropped the competition
American gymnastics star Simone Byers made a test jump shakily at the women's team match last Tuesday, landing unsteadily. After that, she decided to withdraw from the team competition and all the individual finals. Byers said she was lost in the air.
As the winner of 19 world championships and 4 Olympic gold medals, Biles is expected to defend his all-around title at the Tokyo Olympics at rio 2016 and win at least three gold medals for the U.S. team. She was also considered the greatest gymnast of all time, a perfect person who was always able to deliver incredibly complex and unique movements – but expectation became a heavy burden for her. Coming here to the Olympics and becoming a leader is not an easy task. She said at a news conference.
Before the team match, Byers already felt himself trembling and couldn't take a nap as usual. Before the game, she and her teammates wandered the hotel's hallways, gossiping, playing board games, and she also tried to find calm by coloring in picture books. On the day of the game, Byers put a sign on the door of the room to remind himself to smile, but when he got to the field, the effort was still ineffective. Byers couldn't escape the heavy expectations on his shoulders. She felt anxious and less confident than before.
Gymnastics is a sport that must be physically and mentally integrated in order to adapt to dangerous and complex movements, but she has a hard time doing it, and she needs to fight demons all the time. She no longer feels a lot of fun, she feels that the things she loves are deprived, and she is trying to please others. Eventually she made the decision to retire, and she said, we have to focus on ourselves... We need to protect our physical and mental health, not just do what the outside world wants us to do. (Editor's note: The latest news is that Biles will resume competing in the Tokyo Olympics women's gymnastics balance beam final.) ）
Simone Byers retired
5
Amateur victory
The Doctor of Mathematics fought alone and won the championship
Lonely, Anna Kirsenhof won the Women's Cycling Road Race at the Tokyo Olympics. After 147 kilometers of struggle with wind, heat and humidity, she was the first to cross the finish line.
Anna holds a Master's degree in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Spain, and as a mathematical researcher, she is used to solving problems on her own, which is how she approaches cycling. She has never joined any professional cycling team, planning her own nutrition and training, and studying the wind direction and humidity in Tokyo herself before the race. She rarely appears in international competitions, and the powerful Dutch team she defeated this time has never put her on the research list. But Anna never felt like she was here to make up the numbers, and she always had a small expectation in her heart: Maybe, I would win—even though she knew that on a realistic level, I didn't seem to be winning here. After all, the masters here are like clouds.
Anna's success has its own credit, but it also helps with luck – the Dutch team's desire to win has caused a series of fatal mistakes. There was even a oolong, unneeducated by Van Fruten of the Dutch team, who had another person ahead of her as she crossed the finish line, raising her arms high in celebration of her victory.
An Olympic medal hanging from the neck of an amateur is a result that is very much in line with the original intention of the Olympic Games. The winner, Anna, is looking forward to flying back to Austria to celebrate with friends and family. After that, she will continue to study her mathematics and will also continue to train on road bikes. An Olympic gold medal won't change her destiny, and life will be as usual.
Anna Kissenhof
6
Participation is a miracle
The 12-year-old girl raises the Syrian flag to make her home country seen by the world
Hendzaza, 12, from Syria, is one of the country's only two athletes to compete in the Tokyo Olympics and the youngest to participate in the Games. At the opening ceremony on July 23, she raised the Syrian flag and announced to the world that we are coming.
The bustle of the opening continued into the night. After a long standing wait, coupled with six hours of jet lag, Zaza did not rest well that night. The next morning, it was the women's table tennis singles preliminary round, zaza played against 39-year-old Chinese Austrian athlete Liu Jia. It was a game of great disparity in strength, and unsurprisingly, Zaza lost all four sets. The 12-year-old girl shed tears on the spot. This time is a lesson, the next time I will come, to play the follow-up round. My goal is to be an Olympic champion. She said.
Zaza's appearance at the Tokyo Olympics was already a miracle. She can only compete in two or three international tournaments a year. Sometimes visas are hard to approve, a new round of war in the country is started again, and plans to go abroad are repeatedly shelved.
In war-torn Syria, finding a safe and stable practice room is a luxury. Zaza practices on a battered table, and there are frequent power outages in the house, so many times she can only rely on natural lighting, and her training time is very limited. She insisted on practicing for three hours a day, six days a week.
She was playing with all her passion. Sport is a haven for her. Ten years after the Syrian civil war, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, millions have been displaced, and injuries have become routine. Focusing on the rise and fall of a small ball, Zaza felt healed. She also realized that she could make her motherland seen by the world through this small ball, and also gave people in distress some hope and confidence. She is the first athlete in Syrian history to compete in olympic table tennis, and she said that going to Tokyo was a gift to Syria, her parents and friends.
Hend Zaza
7
We'll get over it
Compete on a cargo plane carrying seafood
Late on the night of July 8, a cargo plane loaded with frozen seafood products flew from Nadi International Airport in Fiji to Tokyo. Along with them are players from the Fiji sevens rugby team, whose destination also happens to be Tokyo, where they are going to compete in the 32nd Summer Olympics.
Fiji is an archipelago country floating in the South Pacific, a country with a fanatical fascination with rugby, with a population of less than 900,000 and 80,000 registered rugby players. The Olympic team includes soldiers, prison guards, waiters, fishermen, farmers and the unemployed. In June, with the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games just around the corner, a nationwide outbreak broke out in Fiji and commercial flights to and from Fiji were grounded. In the end, the resourceful team chose to take a ride.
Five years ago, at the Rio Olympics, Fiji rugby sevens won the gold medal, which was also the first Olympic medal in Fiji's history. This time, Fiji defeated New Zealand 27-12 to successfully defend the event title. At the awards ceremony, Fijian athletes sang a traditional song to tell the Fijian people that we would overcome it.
Fiji sevens rugby team
8
Oppose gendered gymnasts
German women's gymnastics team players wear long gymnastics suits
At the Olympic Games, the women of the German gymnastics team wore long rose red jumpsuits, and their uniforms were no longer the traditional tight sleeveless or half-sleeved jumpsuits. The new jersey debuted at the European Championships in April, when the German Gymnastics Association said it was meant to oppose gendered gymnasts.
In sports competitions, it is the international sports federations that determine the wearing of athletes in each sport, and there are double standards in the dress code for male and female athletes, and women's dress is often more stringent for the purpose of being viewed. The German women's gymnastics team's move is to allow athletes to show their beauty in their own comfortable way.
We want to show that every woman, everyone, has the right to decide what they want to wear. Of course, this does not mean that they no longer wear ordinary high-forked tights. They plan to decide what kind of uniform to wear based on their daily feelings, said athlete Elizabeth Seitz, and everything depends on the mood.
9
Protect your son
Wearing a mask to play volleyball
Wearing the No. 16 shirt, the Brazilian men's volleyball vice-attacker Lucas Satecamp wore a black mask throughout the game. When the game is paused, he will walk away a little, lower his mask and breathe smoothly for a while. Lucas was therefore called the first person to prevent the epidemic in the Olympic Games by netizens. He did this out of fear for the safety of his son, Theo. Four-year-old Theo has respiratory ailments, a fever every 15 to 20 days, and bronchitis, and any infection is a great danger to him. Lucas, who trains and plays outside frequently, chooses to protect his son in this way.
Lucas Satekamp, who wore a mask throughout the race
10
Unreliable retirement narrator
Will this be the last time she announces her retirement?
On July 25, 2021, 46-year-old Chusovykina appeared on the vaulting stage at the Tokyo Olympics. She was almost three times the age of her opponents. When she landed on the first jump, her right foot stepped out of bounds, and the second jump still landed wrongly, and finally ranked 11th, stopping the qualifiers. There was no spectator in the gymnastics gym, but the judges, volunteers, and media reporters present all gave a standing ovation. If Chusovkina's narration this time is reliable, this will be the legendary gymnast's final leap.
Chusovkina's Olympic career spanned almost three decades, with three national teams: United in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan and Germany. This is her eighth Olympic appearance, this time representing her native Uzbekistan. Chusovkina, who has been jokingly called an unreliable narrator of retirement by the media, has announced her retirement several times before, but has returned to the field again and again.
The first announcement of retirement was after the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. At that time, her Achilles tendon was torn and she could not compete for a season and a half, and she decided to use the empty window to give birth. After the birth of her son Arischer, she decided to retire.
But she was used to her tight, slender self, and the look in the mirror made her ashamed. She unconsciously returned to the arena. In 2002, she won two gold medals for Uzbekistan.
This year, her son was diagnosed with leukemia, and since then, the identity of a mother has accompanied her career. In order to earn the cost of treatment, she continued to train and participate in various competitions. If I retire, I'll sit under the infusion bottle hanging from the mop head and watch my son die... In order to improve medical conditions and higher competition costs, in 2003, Chusovkina transferred to Germany and represented Germany. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 33-year-old Chusovykina won the silver medal in women's vaulting, the first silver medal in gymnastics in Germany in 62 years.
She later planned to retire after the 2009 World Championships and the 2012 London Olympics, but she reappeared at international competitions every year since. In 2014, his son's illness was cured. After her son recovered, she still did not retire, but now the decision not to retire is for herself.
The identity of a mother cannot hide her love of gymnastics. She once said: There are no secrets. I just love gymnastics and no one ever forced me to compete. For so many years I have been listening to my heart and insisting on sports. I love sports, I know what it is, and I want to be a happy person.
Step by step, I was looking at how far my body could take me. At the Tokyo Olympics, her fingers were coated with blue, white and green nail polish representing the flag of Uzbekistan, and she had shiny stud earrings on her ears. As she left the arena, she dried her tears.
Chusovkina
11
Olympic experience faction
His Olympic sports include taekwondo, cross-country skiing, kayaking...
The bare-chested, oiled Tonga flag bearer appeared at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, named Pitta Tauffatofa. The 37-year-old Tongan has competed in three consecutive Olympic competitions and become Tonga's Olympic opening ceremony standard-bearer for the third consecutive time.
He is an Olympic experienceist, and challenging and overcoming adversity is the meaning of his participation in the Olympic Games. He started out as a taekwondo athlete and then, in order to compete in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics without taekwondo, he began teaching himself cross-country skiing on a video website and roller skating lessons – he had only seen snow once before. He later stood at the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, smearing coconut oil shirtless among a group of athletes in down jackets.
In preparation for the Tokyo Olympics, he had planned to change events and challenge the kayaks – he couldn't even hold his kayaks in the first race – and then he missed the canoe qualification with a rib injury. In the end, in order to be able to come to the Tokyo Olympics, he retreated to the second place and returned to his original taekwondo athlete.
Pitta Tauffatofa at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics
12
Go play, go and enjoy
A short escape from trivial everyday life
On July 27, 48-year-old Hong Jianfang stopped the table tennis women's singles round of 32, ending her journey to the Tokyo Olympics. This is her sixth time on the Olympic field. She was very satisfied with the results this time.
According to the Qianjiang Evening News, Hong Jianfang was once one of the best players in the Zhejiang provincial team. In 1989, she went to Melbourne to play, met her current husband, a local Chinese fan, and later immigrated to Australia. In a foreign country, table tennis has become her spiritual connection with her hometown. She decided to compete in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Without a complete set of training, competition and rehabilitation systems in China, Hong Jianfang has to rely on herself for everything. She converted her family's garage into a training room, driving two cars out before each training session, and a pile of daily debris piled up next to the ping-pong table. Her husband and children were her sparring partners. Eventually, she was able to participate in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
To the surprise of the old teammates of the Zhejiang team, Hong Jianfang actually played for six times. The best result so far is the top 32, and Hong Jianfang is happy in it.
She doesn't care about winning or losing, in fact, she takes the opportunity of the Olympic Games to walk more, meet friends, and see the world. For her, going to the Olympics is more of a play, which can allow her to escape from the trivial routine for a short time. Her fan husband also always encouraged her to play and enjoy.
Hong Jianfang
Resources:
Qianjiang Evening News, "Zhejiang Aunt Hong Jianfang Participated in the Olympic Games for the Sixth Time"
Xinhua News Agency, "Tokyo Olympics| Qiu Ma, goodbye! 》
"Hong Kong 01", "Character | When eating ramen is also hell training, Ikee Rihanako's comeback is no miracle"
New York Times, Simone Biles’s Future at the Olympics Left Unclear
CNN, Anna Kiesenhofer is a math genius who just pulled off one of the biggest shocks in Olympics history
International Table Tennis Federation's Publication, Introducing Hend Zaza: Syria's 11-year-old star, bound for Tokyo 2020