When the city of Tokyo was just waking up, after nearly two hours of competition in the Women's Marathon Swimming Women's 10 km event in Odaiba Seaside Park in Tokyo Bay, today's first gold medal was born.
It was a long 10-kilometer race, and it was a contest between the runners and their willpower and endurance.
Text/Mary
On July 14, in the list of participants released by the Chinese Olympic delegation, a participant attracted the attention of netizens - Xin Xin, who participated in the marathon swimming competition, only one of them participated, but there were 5 coaches and staff, and the reserve team configuration of the participant Xin Xin 'five accompanied one' made the strange Olympic project of marathon swimming gradually attract everyone's attention.
In the end, in the marathon swimming event that ended this morning, a total of 25 people competed for the highest honor, Brazil's Anna Cunha won the championship in 1 hour 59 minutes 30 seconds 8, and China's Xin Xin ranked eighth with a time of 2 hours 10 seconds 1. Seventeen minutes later, the 25th-place Algerian runner also swam to the finish line, and the whole staff applauded her.
Xin Xin once said that he swam alone, the whole game is not to give up, even if he is left behind, it is also a spirit.
01
The track is full of loneliness
"It's a different sport, where you are surrounded by enemies and the biggest battle is with yourself. In the water, you are completely detached from the real world. Every three or four times you'll hear the rumble of the boat's engine and smell a smell of diesel, but as your head sinks into the water, everything becomes white noise and muffled." One runner once described a marathon swimming race this way.
Many people like to use the term "loneliness" to describe this sport, when training, often when others get up in the water, you are still swimming in the water; and in the game, in addition to the sound of commentary, most of the time you can only hear the athlete's arm non-stop paddling, it is difficult to have other sounds; the first time you swim in open water, there will be a huge sense of fear, because you face more unknown, uncertain, which is unique to open water.
Xin Xin was the only player on the Chinese delegation to participate in the open water competition at the Olympic Games, not only did she not have teammates to fight alongside, but in this sport, the slightly quiet, glasses-clad girl had to endure two hours of fighting alone.
In fact, this project has a group advantage, although the distance is very long, but the difference in strength between the masters will not be very large, if the same country can have multiple athletes to participate, then you can formulate tactics in advance, but unfortunately, only Xin Xin in our country has obtained the Olympic qualification and moved forward alone. The coach once said that she was a girl who gave her more pressure and more bearing, but the stronger she was.
This little girl born in Jinan, Shandong Province, in 1996, was affectionately known as the "Iron Maiden" because she participated in the marathon swimming competition. Xin Xin emerged from the provincial swimming team at the age of 15, she is a domestic 800m freestyle champion, at the 2013 National Games, she won the 800m freestyle championship with a time of 8 minutes 19.43 seconds and broke the Asian record, but these events are very competitive internationally.
It was also at that National Games that Xin Xin began to challenge marathon swimming, one of Xin Xin's strengths is endurance, the women's 10 km marathon swimming final, with a time of 2 hours 05 minutes 33 seconds 35 seconds to win the championship. It was also from that time that Xin Xin's distance changed from 800 meters to 10,000 meters.
Xin Xin believes that if he wants to win the marathon swimming championship, in addition to a trace of just the right luck, the rest is not to give up the "fight". Because the marathon is a project with great endurance and willpower, in this complex competition environment, higher requirements are put forward for Xin Xin's usual training.
Generally, short-distance swimmers train at 3,000-4,000 meters a day, and the long distance is about 8 kilometers, but Xin Xin has to swim 15 kilometers a day for training. "I sometimes envy sprint athletes and think how good it would be if I practiced short distances too. But now that you've chosen this, you should stick with it."
CCTV reporter once asked Xin Xin: It is so difficult and so bitter, why do you still practice?
Xin Xin responded with a smile: "It is because it is difficult, many people are not willing to practice, I have a chance." This program requires great talent, but talented athletes are often reluctant to practice the program, so this program has given me more opportunities."
It is also more such efforts that make Xin Xin be favored by the goddess of luck in the international competition, Xin Xin, who participated in the Olympic Games for the first time in 2016, won the fourth place by relying on a lot of hard work, and at that time her competition experience can be said to be basically nothing.
In the 2018 World Series in Canada and Chun'an, Zhejiang, she won the championship. In the official competition in China, Xin Xin has not yet tasted defeat.
Although many people in Xin Xin's family have practiced swimming, there are no professional swimmers, and they did not think that there would be a world champion at home. After winning the provincial games championship, Xin Xin once asked his father, "What kind of leader am I swimming to?" Her father said to her, "When you win the national championship, we will not practice", and later, after Xin Xin really became the national champion, she never said the question of "not practicing" again.
In the summer of 2019, it was a turning point for Xin Xin, who won the women's 10 km open water race at the World Swimming Championships in Guangzhou. Xin Xin ranked 41st in the slowest time in the first half of the journey in order to save physical strength, but she overtook all the way and grabbed the first place in the final stage, defeating the American star Anderson by a slight advantage of 0.9 seconds to win the championship. Not only did Xin Xin himself feel incredible after the game, the team was not even prepared to receive the medal suit.
This championship made Xin Xin the first Chinese athlete to win the open water event of the World Swimming Championships, and also created the history of China's marathon swimming field.
02
The longest distance swimming competition
The 10km Swim Marathon – abbreviated as "Marathon Swim", is the longest swimming race in the Olympic Games, a two-hour swim that is a double test of the participants' physical strength and willpower, and is also known as one of the most challenging events in the Olympic Games.
Marathon swimming did not appear on the Olympic field for a long time, and it was not until the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games that it officially made its Olympic debut. At the 1991 World Aquatics Championships in Perth, Australia, marathon swimming became an official event. At that time, the distance was 25 kilometers, and the race time was more than 5 hours, because the distance was too long, and in the Olympic Games, the marathon distance was finally fixed at 10 kilometers.
The longest-distance swimming competition in the Olympics also started late in China, and it was not until the Rio 2016 Olympic games cycle that China formed a marathon swimming coaching team. At that Olympic Games, Xin Xin, who was not yet 20 years old and had no experience in international competitions, won the fourth place with a time of 1 hour, 57 minutes and 14 seconds. Although she did not win the podium, she still created China's best result in this project.
In the vast waters, how to identify athletes?
Athletes who participate in marathon swimming will have a black athlete number printed on their backs and arms, which can be clearly identified by this number and the athlete's hat, but it is still difficult to see the athlete through the screen in front of the TV.
Marathon swimming tracks are usually set in circles. It is generally divided into 4 or 5 laps, because it is played in open water, so the competition is often affected by natural conditions such as waves, water temperature, weather and so on.
In addition to dealing with waves, athletes in order to occupy a better position, there will also be physical "fighting" between each other in the game, and various small actions of pulling and tearing in the water are not uncommon. Marathon swimming seems calm on the surface, but in fact it is surging undercurrents.
Marathon swimming is extremely strategic, and runners need to try to save their physical strength before reaching the final sprint stage. Beyond and beyond, the suspense of the competition is also one of the attractions of this project.
The culmination of the 10-kilometer swimming endurance race began at 7 kilometers, which is the final assault on the finish line when the athletes begin. The final competition for marathon swimming is very fierce, no less than the sprint of 1500 meters.
Because of the great contingency, in many cases, the first few competitions of the race occur within a few meters or even a few centimeters near the finish line, and the gap between the runners is often a few seconds or even a few tenths of a second.
The whole competition generally takes two hours to complete, and it is also the key to achieving excellent results in having top physical conditions and rationally using external objective conditions such as waves and water flows.
Another major feature of marathon swimming is the supply of mid-way supplies.
In the marathon swimming race, you will see a very interesting shot, on the floating platform will stretch out a variety of poles, from a distance, a bit like fishing.
In fact, this is the coach providing food supplies for athletes, taking 55 kg athletes as an example, 30 minutes need 1 cup of apple juice supply, if more than 75 kg, it needs to be quite 2 cups of grape juice supply. Coaches use poles to carry food or drinks over the waterway, and athletes can reach out and switch the swimming position to backstroke in an instant to replenish, almost in one sitting.
Marathon swimming mid-course supplies are a bit similar to F1 races, athletes will be crowded together when replenishing, need to grab positions, if they fail, they will lose a lot of energy and time, which is very demanding on the tacit understanding between coaches and runners. When to replenish is in the tactical category, but it also depends on the actual situation to adjust, which needs to be judged based on experience.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Xin Xin originally planned to make two replenishments. However, due to the lack of competition experience, when making supplies, he was squeezed to the outside by the opponent, and as a result, during the whole game, Xin Xin did not have a supply at one time, but in the absence of supplies, Xin Xin got the fourth place with his own hard work.
It can be seen that marathon swimming is a sport with high requirements for physical fitness, willpower and technical and tactical ability.
In the open water competition, runners and spectators can not only enjoy the cityscape of Tokyo, but also enjoy the wide bay scenery, and marathon swimming has gradually become a project to showcase the characteristics of the host country's urban scenery.
The wind is farther away than the far side, and marathon swimming is like haizi's poem "September". The loneliness of these athletes is incomprehensible, and perhaps only those who swim through that water know that loneliness, and in this sport, people are also challenging themselves, to nature, to loneliness: unpredictable sea breezes, changing water temperatures, unpredictable competition situations...
Xin Xin's teammates who trained together once said to her: We will all take you as a teammate, but we will not take you as a friend. Xin Xin said, "Even if everyone doesn't understand you, I don't care much about this, and sometimes I feel that I am very good alone."
In addition to extreme exhaustion, marathon swimming can also allow athletes to enjoy "loneliness", in this noisy world, it is difficult to enjoy such a long time, abandon the distractions and the opportunity to be alone with yourself, you can think about some things on your own, perhaps this is another degree of enjoyment of "loneliness".
Whether it is the brazilian Cunha's final gold medal dream, or Xin Xin's regretful loss of the podium, in fact, for the 25 athletes standing in the marathon swimming arena, everyone deserves respect, and it is already a victory for them to reach the timing track of the finish line to complete the dash.