Although he could not grasp the racket hard due to his hand disability, this did not prevent Zhao Shuai from becoming a table tennis star in the shining arena. In the Tokyo Paralympic Table Tennis Men's Singles C8 Final on the 30th, the 26-year-old Chinese boy defeated Ukraine's Diduk 3-1 to achieve the Third Consecutive Paralympic Championship.
Zhao Shuai is from Wei County, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province. At the age of 3, he unfortunately suffered a serious traffic accident, and although he saved his life after more than 50 days of rescue, he lost his left arm. His right hand was also severely distorted and unable to stretch, and the most important function of the thumb was unconscious, and the middle and ring fingers also lost their fingertips.
Unexpectedly, such a Zhao Shuai showed his talent for table tennis at the age of 10. Zhao Shuai's father, Zhao Zhongbao, was an amateur master who had run table tennis training classes. That year, Zhao Shuai went to the training class with his father and developed a strong interest in playing. Zhao Zhongbao wanted to coax his son to be happy, so he let Xiao Zhao Shuai try to play a few times, but he did not expect that his son would soon be able to play more than 20 rounds of "peace ball" with himself. In the next few days, Zhao Zhongbao took his son to play every day, and on the fifth day, Zhao Shuai defeated the children of the same age who were two or three years old. As a result, Zhao Zhongbao began to take his son to practice and became Zhao Shuai's enlightenment coach.
Others can choose to hold the ball, and Zhao Shuai, who has no sense of thumb, has become a straight board player "without choice". And, due to his finger disability, he could only tie the racket to his hand and play the ball. But Zhao Shuai is not only talented, but also a diligent player, even eating and walking are thinking about the rotation of the ball. He made it all the way to the national team and won the 2012 Paralympic Games, followed by a back-to-back laurel in 2016.
In the final on the 30th, Zhao Shuai once again showed his tenacious will, and the first set of fierce battles with his opponents was 17-15 before the victory and defeat were divided. After winning the second set 11-7, he experienced psychological swings in the third set and was pulled back by his opponent 6-11. In the fourth set, Zhao Shuai put aside his distractions and finally won this difficult victory 12-10.
It is understood that in order to prepare for the Tokyo Paralympic Games, Zhao Shuai had trained with healthy athletes at the Zhengding Table Tennis Training Base in Hebei Province a few months ago. In addition, after graduating from Beijing Sport University majoring in physical training, he also went to a university in Zhejiang this spring as a special teacher and taught table tennis. The healthy students have a high evaluation of the disabled teacher, and the director of the school's sports department said that Zhao Shuai can not only greatly improve the students' table tennis level, but also set an example for everyone, stimulate students' enthusiasm for physical exercise, and show the diversity and tolerance of sports.
Image source of this article: Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games official Weibo