Face to face 丨 Two gold and two silver How did Olympic swimming champion Zhang Yufei "break the cocoon into a butterfly"?
After the Tokyo Olympics, 23-year-old Zhang Yufei returned to his homeland with two gold medals and two silver medals. Zhang Yufei is the athlete with the most medals won by Chinese swimmers in a single Olympic arena, and the Chinese athlete who has won the most medals in this Olympic Games.
Young fame and high talent
Excellent results are the result of talent and hard work. In the interview, Zhang Yufei did not reject the idea that he had talent.
Zhang Yufei: Swimmers need to insist on going into the water every day to maintain the sense of water. We all said that we can't go into the water for three days, because if you don't go into the water for three days, you can't catch the water when you go into the water again, and you feel the water slip away from your fingers. But I didn't go into the water for two weeks, and then I still had the feeling of water, and I could swim fast.
Zhang Yufei's talent is more than this, her body is very durable, and her recovery speed after strenuous exercise is very fast. This means that in the same training time, her training volume and intensity are much higher than others.
Zhang Yufei: Usually when everyone says they are tired, I think I can hold on a little longer, and I can swim a little longer.
Speaking of talent, we have to mention Zhang Yufei's parents, who are swimmers. When Zhang Yufei was 3 years old, they began to take Zhang Yufei to the pool for swimming.
Zhang Yufei: When I participated in the provincial competition that year, the results were very good, and I was favored by the provincial coach and entered the provincial team. Later, the provincial team test I swam out very good results, and was favored by the national team coach.
In 2015, the World Swimming Championships were held in Kazan, Russia, and Zhang Yufei, who had just turned 17, defeated many of the world's best players in the women's 200m butterfly final and finally reached the podium. Zhang Yufei described it as "a windfall that was expected."
Zhang Yufei: Before I was 17 years old, I was officially selected for the national team's individual list. Then I wondered if I could get a bronze medal at the World Championships, and it really happened.
Reporter: What do you think it took to achieve this?
Zhang Yufei: Talent. Until I was 17 years old, I always felt that I was a very lucky person, and I could get ten honors and achievements with a little effort, and many things were easy to get.
Gifted girl The first Olympic trip in her life left bitterness
After winning the bronze medal at the Kazan World Championships, many people had high hopes for Zhang Yufei, a 17-year-old but talented girl, who believed that she would gradually become the leader of Chinese swimming. In 2016, Zhang Yufei represented the Chinese team in the 200-meter butterfly event at the Rio Olympic Games. Zhang Yufei swam into the women's 200m butterfly final, however, the final result was unexpected by everyone. This new star was greeted by the 6th place result. In the next two or three years, Zhang Yufei did not look back at the video of the game.
Zhang Yufei: I always had a video of the Rio Olympic final on my phone, but I didn't dare to open that video for two or three years. At that time, I lost so badly that I didn't want to feel the mood at that time.
Reporter: What happened?
Zhang Yufei: At that time, I didn't dare to rush forward, didn't want to win the championship, didn't want to have good results, and only wanted to retreat backwards.
Throw away the techniques you've learned before
After the Rio Olympics, Zhang Yufei began to think about the relationship between talent and winning the championship, and what was needed to stand on the highest podium besides talent.
Zhang Yufei: If compared with domestic players, I am indeed very talented. But if you want to reach the final and enter the top eight in a world competition like the Olympic Games, it is not only talent that is compared to who works harder, who does the details better, and who has a higher level of comprehensiveness.
In December 2017, Zhang Yufei met Cui Dengrong, a coach with extremely high technical details. Cui Dengrong is a well-known technical coach who has brought out the women's 100m butterfly Olympic silver medalist Lu Ying.
Cui Dengrong's first thing to do is to guide Zhang Yufei to change the technology. For athletes, especially those who have become famous, changing technology is a very risky and has little effect in the short term. Successful technical reform can make a qualitative leap in the athlete's level of exercise, and if it is not successful, it will be counterproductive.
In April 2018, after nearly half a year of training with Cui Dengrong to change his skills, the master and apprentice ushered in the National Swimming Championships. In this competition, Zhang Yufei's performance did not advance and retreated, 5 seconds backwards from the previous National Games results. Zhang Yufei, 20, had doubts about herself for the first time.
Zhang Yufei: At that time, because I had just changed my technology, I couldn't swim down the distance of 200 meters, and my results were not good, so I would doubt myself, was I already at the end of my sports career? Am I already starting to go downhill? Am I no longer able to do it?
This series of questions often echoed in Zhang Yufei's mind, and it was not until 2018 that the situation changed. At the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Zhang Yufei withstood the pressure in the final of the 200m butterfly and won the championship with a time of 2:06.67 and returned to her peak form. Staying at the top is not easy. Just one year later, in July 2019, in Gwangju, South Korea, at the 18th FINA World Championships, Zhang Yufei suffered another fiasco, the 100-meter butterfly did not reach the final, and the 200-meter butterfly that she was good at did not even enter the semi-finals. Six months after the Gwangju World Championships, Zhang Yufei's 200-meter butterfly still did not improve, and the national championships and military games were lost to opponents one after another.
"Zhang Yufei is not suitable for playing in the World Series, and as soon as she arrives on the field, she is afraid of her head and tail..." The evaluation of the outside world began to affect this girl who seemed to have a big nerve.
A bold decision to change the future
In April 2020, under the premise of postponing the Tokyo Olympic Games by one year, Cui Dengrong made a bold decision not to participate in any 200-meter butterfly competition this year, and not to test any 200-meter butterfly results for one year, so that Zhang Yufei could focus on 100-meter butterfly and raise his confidence first.
In September 2020, at the National Swimming Championships, Zhang Yufei soared into the sky, first breaking the national record of more than ten years in the 100-meter freestyle, and then breaking the Asian record in the 100-meter butterfly, only 0.14 seconds away from the world record. Finally, in the mixed-race relay, working together with teammates set a world record.
Reporter: You rediscovered yourself, is this what you went to explore with Coach Cui, or did Coach Cui already know your best look and just tell you how to get there?
Zhang Yufei: He always knew, he had confidence in me, and he was also going step by step as planned, but when I walked in it, I didn't know, when I accepted something unknown, tried something that hadn't been tried, I was confused.
The collision of water and fire
After the championship, Cui Dengrong found Zhang Yufei and told her that after training, it would still revolve around the 200-meter butterfly. Their goal is still to win the 200m butterfly at the Tokyo Olympics. Hearing this news, Zhang Yufei was not surprised, not because she had long known that this was Cui Dengrong's plan, but because she believed in the decision he made and was willing to implement it. The relationship between Zhang Yufei and Cui Dengrong can reach this step, and it is not easy.
Cui Dengrong is a perfectionist, pursuing the ultimate and perfection in detail and technology. Zhang Yufei usually has a big grin, and there are words to say, it is the personality that does not matter if the sky falls. Differences in personality make two people with very stubborn tempers often have friction during training.
Zhang Yufei: We are like the collision of water and fire, and there will be a collision and quarrel every once in a while. The worst argument was probably in the pool, and I was halfway there and he was so angry he called me up. At first I didn't dare to talk, I thought he was the coach, but in the end I couldn't stand it, so I got into a fight with him in the pool, and many pairs of eyes were looking at us, and afterwards I felt that I had done something quite wrong.
Reporter: When you went to confront him, what was his reaction?
Zhang Yufei: He used theory to convince me. When I argued with him, I didn't feel like I was arguing as an athlete at all, more like arguing as a daughter, thinking that I was already very tired, you coaxed me to be good, why do you tell me so many big truths. But he said, I can't talk to you as a father on the field, that's it.
Reporter: How do you understand these quarrels between you?
Zhang Yufei: I think it is a good thing, if you just blindly listen to the coaches, it will not reach the world's top level. I think athletes should have their own ideas, of course, the coach is the main idea, we need to say their own ideas, to negotiate a most suitable method, to help us both improve together.
With age, Zhang Yufei can already rationally look at the friction between her and Cui Dengrong. However, there was a "calm" quarrel that she was afraid of now when she thought about it.
At the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games, the first day just won the 200m butterfly final, and the next day, Zhang Yufei directly lost the silver medal that the Chinese team was about to win because of the foul in the women's mixed connection competition, and Cui Rongdeng said to Zhang Yufei "I don't want to take her anymore" in a huff.
Zhang Yufei: Actually, there is a reason why he said this. One was that he was too overwhelmed to see me win the championship, and he was angry when he fouled the next day. There is also a foul on the 2014 Asian Games, my sister fouled on the women's mixed connection, and in 2018 I fouled the women's mixed connection, both fouls were his disciples, he felt a little sorry for everyone, how are his disciples making mistakes? At that time, after I heard his words, I was very scared, I went to the national team leader, I said what to do, Cui guidance does not take me?
Cui Dengrong did not "abandon" Zhang Yufei as he said, on the contrary, he helped Zhang Yufei usher in her personal best in the 200m butterfly. On the first day of 2021, Zhang Yufei played again after more than 400 days of leaving the 200-meter butterfly. At this time, she has washed away the feeling of failure in her body, and she has greatly improved her personal best in 2 minutes 05 seconds 49 seconds, which is also the best in the world in recent years.
"Thank you Father Cui, Little Nezha for finally realizing his dream of the Olympics"
Bringing out an Olympic champion is the dream of 52-year-old Cui Dengrong. For Zhang Yufei, after repeated tossing and turning between hope and disappointment, winning the Olympic gold medal for Cui Dengrong has become her mission.
But winning gold at the Olympics is never an easy task, especially for a player who has lost the Olympic Games.
In July 2021, Zhang Yufei stood on the field of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She won a silver medal in the women's 100m butterfly and then rode in the 200m butterfly to win gold and break olympic records. Not only that, Zhang Yufei and his teammates won the Olympic gold medal in the women's 4×200m freestyle relay and the silver medal in the 4×100m medley relay for the Chinese team. On Weibo, Zhang Yufei publicly "confessed" to Cui Dengrong: "Thanks to Cui Daddy's 'nagging' over the years, Xiao Nezha finally realized his dream of Tokyo." ”
Zhang Yufei: He is my Bole, nobleman, he knows better than myself how far I can reach, I may aim for myself to be in the top three, he wants me to win the championship; my goal for himself is the championship, he wants me to break the world record.
Reporter: Have you started planning for the Paris Olympics?
Zhang Yufei: Not yet, he said that if I really want to plan for the Paris Olympics, I must have my own ideas, and I don't have any ideas yet. Because I have achieved one of his biggest dreams so far, if we participate in the Paris Olympics, then our goal should not be as simple as winning gold.
Reporter 丨 Wang Ning
Source: CCTV news client