At the 2004 Athens Olympics, China's Meng Guanliang/Yang Wenjun won the men's doubles 500m and made history in rowing.
Seventeen years later, in the men's doubles 1000m final of rowing at the Tokyo Olympics, the Chinese duo of Liu Hao/Zheng Pengfei was in the lead for most of the time, but unfortunately they were overtaken by their opponents in the sprint stage, and finally crossed the finish line in the second place with a time of 3 minutes 25.198 seconds, winning a silver medal for the Chinese delegation.
The duo, from Yuxi, Yunnan, and Qiqihar, Heilongjiang, showed their strength, speed and cooperation at the Tokyo Olympics, despite their births in different regions and north of the Sea, and their upbringing.
On August 3, Liu Hao/ Zheng Peng flew out of the Olympic rowing still water men's 1000m double rowing competition. Image according to IC photo
Learn to swim before learning to kayak
Zheng Pengfei went from "Dry Duck" to the Olympic podium
From practicing kayaking to now, Zheng Pengfei has dealt with water almost every day, but when he first arrived at the sports school for training, Zheng Pengfei was a "dry duck". Zheng Pengfei was born in April 1993 in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang, and at the end of 2006, at the end of 2006, he was introduced to Guangdong Shunde Sports School by Zhang Dan, a swimming coach at the sports school. When he first arrived in Shunde, Zheng Pengfei was still a "dry duck", but the direction of his sport at that time was kayaking, so his first training was to learn to swim with Coach Zhang Dan, and he only began special training in kayaking in early 2007.
From the northeast to Lingnan, the first thing to pass is the "weather pass". When he first arrived in Shunde, the humid and hot weather in Lingnan once made Zheng Pengfei very uncomfortable. "But he was a hard-working kid." Zheng Pengfei's enlightenment coach Mao Guobin said, "Learning kayaking is not an easy task, it is easy to overturn the boat at the beginning, Zheng Pengfei upholds the determination to learn and learn well, each stage has a small goal, and constantly achieves, his comprehension ability is relatively strong, training is also particularly hard." ”
Zheng Pengfei's ability to make great progress in the kayaking project has a lot to do with the guidance of coach Mao Guobin. Mao Guobin was a kayaker in the 1980s, and after retiring in 1990, he went to Shunde Sports School as a kayak coach. Today, he is a senior coach in the kayaking program and the principal of Shunde Sports School, participating in and witnessing the development of kayaking in China in the past 20 years.
From "a blank piece of paper" to making a name for himself in international competitions, Zheng Pengfei took only 7 years: at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, Zheng Pengfei finished second in the men's double 1,000 meters of rowing; subsequently, he finished fifth in the men's 5,000 meters of rowing at the World Championships. Today, Zheng Pengfei and Liu Hao are partnering in the Tokyo Olympic Games.
On August 3, Liu Hao and Zheng Peng flew into the tokyo Olympic rowing men's doubles 1000m semifinals. Image according to IC photo
Since childhood, he has loved swimming
Liu Hao once missed the Rio Olympics with appendicitis
Unlike his partner Zheng Pengfei, Liu Hao, who was born in Yuxi, Yunnan, has loved swimming since he was a child. In 2007, when the teachers of Yuxi Sports School selected the seedlings of the kayak project, they immediately took a fancy to the 14-year-old boy. After more than a year of training at the sports school, Liu Hao was sent to the Wuhan Institute of Physical Education Athletics, where China's first kayak Olympic champion Meng Guanliang was trained, for special training. Here, Liu Hao trained hard and quickly made great progress.
At the 2010 Yunnan Provincial Games, Liu Hao won two gold medals in the men's rowing singles 1000 meters and 2000 meters, and was then sent to the Yunnan Provincial Kayak Team by the Yuxi Sports School, when he was only 17 years old. At the 2013 National Games, Liu Hao finally finished fourth as the youngest and shortest of the nine skaters in the men's single 1000m final.
After the National Games, Liu Hao, who has great potential, was recruited to the Chinese kayak training team, and the higher platform also doubled his confidence and improved his performance quickly. In 2014, Liu Hao won the second place in the men's four-person 1000m of the World Cup rowing in the Czech Republic; in 2015, Liu Hao won the national championships of rowing men's single 500 meters and 1000 meters, achieving the best result in the national competition since the Yunnan kayaking team was formed.
Just when everyone was expecting Liu Hao to win at the Rio Olympics, fate played a big joke with him. Two days before the last Olympic trials, Liu Hao suddenly had appendicitis and had no choice but to rub shoulders with his first Olympic Games. After missing the Rio Olympics, in the past 5 years, Liu Hao overcame various injuries, trained hard, and finally stood on the stage of the Tokyo Olympic Games.
This time, Liu Hao and teammate Zheng Pengfei together firmly held the "Oar of Destiny" in their hands. In the semi-finals, they reached the final with a record of 3:27.23 and successfully advanced to the final; in the final, they continued to work hard, and a precious silver medal was the best reward for their years of effort.
Red Star News reporter Li Bo
Edit Bao Chengli
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