▲ On November 15, 2019, Sun Yang (center) arrived at the public hearing of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) v. Chinese swimmer Sun Yang and the International Swimming Federation (FINA). (Xinhua News Agency, Alain Groklord/Photo)
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"Everyone can bear it, that's not called bearing, when everyone can't bear it, you can bear it, this is what you have to do." Otherwise, why do you get more than others? ”
"Sun Yang always feels that as long as he grasps the other party for a wrong reason, he can be arrogant and arrogant."
This article was first published in Southern Weekend and may not be reproduced without authorization
Text | Southern Weekend reporter Li Muyan
Southern Weekend contributed to Zhou Xinyu
Responsible Editor | Xing Renjian
On February 28, 2020, the Sun Yang drug test dispute, which lasted for 542 days, came to the ruling. At 10 a.m. local time in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announced that Sun Yang had failed to comply with the rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency and had been banned for 8 years.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport said the arbitrators agreed that the inspectors had complied with the relevant regulations and that Sun Yang had failed to provide a convincing reason for his sabotage of sampling. The appeal was filed by the International Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to grant Sun Yang a 2- to 8-year ban. Considering that this was Sun Yang's second violation, the Court of Arbitration for Sport finally imposed a cap on punishment. Sun Yang then responded on Weibo, "Shocked, angry, incomprehensible! He also said that he had appointed a lawyer to appeal to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. The Chinese Swimming Association also issued a statement, "Supporting Sun Yang to continue to use legal means to safeguard his legitimate rights and interests." “
Since July 2019, Southern Weekend reporters have begun to visit Sun Yang. There are two ways to visit him, one is through the Zhejiang Provincial Sports Bureau, a direct subordinate unit of his Zhejiang Provincial Swimming Team. The Sports Bureau quickly replied: "We will not accept any form of interview until Sun Yang's International Court of Arbitration for Sport has ruled on his conduct. ”
Another way is to contact his brokerage team. Sun Yang has changed five brokerage companies so far, almost one every year. Sun Yang's agent asked for detailed interviews and reporting angles, and complained, "To be honest, we have received a lot of interview requests, and now there are media who want to talk about his growth over the years, he is almost thirty years old, and what growth is still talking about." ”
"Growing up", this is a kind of polite statement when the media talks about Sun Yang, so that he can avoid talking about the controversy he has suffered before, and euphemistically express his expectations that he has changed.
All along, Sun Yang's genius and negative news are almost as much. So far, he has ranked first in the world in the number of individual gold medals in the men's freestyle, with the Chinese men's swimming event winning a total of 18 gold medals in the World Series, and Sun Yang winning 14 gold medals. But outside the arena, he has repeatedly sparked controversy in the media, such as in 2013, when Sun Yang was administratively detained for driving without a license, and in 2014 he was detected using illegal drugs, and the China Anti-Doping Center banned him for three months, which proved to be a misdose for the treatment of the heart.
"Sun Yang has always been a constant thing off the field, and the achievements on the field have also continued." A journalist who participated in the live coverage of the World Swimming Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, in July 2019, said that foreign media paid great attention to Sun Yang - "because he subverted the traditional image of Chinese athletes". And domestic counterparts have long been strange, they all know that squatting in the field where Sun Yang is located is where the news usually appears.
The news did appear: after Sun Yang won the 400-meter freestyle, Australian swimmer Horton, who finished second, refused to stand on the podium with him.
"A lot of people don't want to see him, and he won't want to see others, so there will be a lot of people who say he's not good, but it's not, he's protecting himself." Sun Yang's enlightenment coach Zhu Ying told Southern Weekend reporters, "It's just that his surface will be a little more ostentatious, and he is not a person who takes the initiative." ”
Few athletes can make people care so much about his personal cultivation. Born in 1991 and famous for his swimming performance, Sun Yang is inevitably compared with sports predecessors Li Na and Yao Ming, who have repeatedly humbly expressed that they cannot represent China. And "he (Sun Yang) desperately portrayed himself as a patriotic model." The problem with this kind of human design is that his arrogance and arbitrariness are precisely very damaging to the image of Chinese sports. Wang Qinbo, a senior reporter at Sports Weekly, told Southern Weekend reporters, "Sun Yang always feels that as long as he grasps the other party for a wrong reason, he can be arrogant and arrogant." ”
However, among Sun Yang's many supporters, a typical voice will always come forward to retort: "You are too demanding of genius." ”
Best-selling author Zhang Yan has written the inspirational book "Sun Yang: Swimming Straight Forward". After a long period of analysis of Sun Yang, Zhang Yan found that his state of mind was very similar to Nezha in the movie "The Demon Boy of Nezha", "There was a period of time in Nezha, the villagers did not understand him, there were gossip about him, and he was also very emotional. He attributed sun yang's controversy to the "harsh demands" of the outside world.
"Teenager, Lu Xun said that a warrior has shortcomings, but it doesn't affect him as a warrior, and even your perfect fly is a fly, isn't it?" Zhang Yan told Southern Weekend reporters.
Back to the beginning of everything, the outside world found that from when sun yang and the people around him always seemed to be fighting against something.
On July 20, 2019, Sun Yang took a photo wearing a national flag after the award ceremony. (Xinhua News Agency/Photo)
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<h3 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "perfect freestyle"</h3>
The billboard at the entrance of the Chen Jinglun Sports School in Hangzhou displays photos of Sun Yang and Zhu Ying receiving commendations from the municipal government. Chen Jinglun Sports School is enshrined as the "existence of the Chinese swimming god" and has trained three swimming Olympic champions.
As Sun Yang's enlightenment coach, Zhu Ying may be one of the people who know him best, and whenever he encounters trouble, Sun Yang will return to his alma mater and talk to Zhu Ying.
In 1997, Zhu Ying selected 6-year-old Sun Yang from kindergarten, who was already very tall at that time, and the longest bed could not sleep him. From the time when he was young and careless, Sun Yang was a person who trained quite seriously - "the eyes will follow you", but he could also see the hint of rebellion - "skin to your collapse".
"He's a little hyperactive, he can't manage his hands well, he has to touch them twice, and people are angry, but they are annoyed, 'You have nothing to do with me?' That's how he was. Zhu Ying said that she always "blew up" for these things, and Sun Yang's "bad deeds" also included pushing the assistant coach into the water and breaking the glass in the locker room.
Zhu Ying told them that as long as she did not step on her own bottom line, she could be very happy, so happy that everyone was happy. The bottom line is "troublemaking, running into trouble, and training is not serious." At the first two points, she had no way to take Sun Yang, but he was never lazy, and he would take the initiative to supervise others, and his teammates were lazy and less swimming, and he would raise his hand to tell the coach.
For Sun Yang's rebellious temperament since childhood, Zhu Ying understands that "it is often Zhang Yang who can go to the top, and children who are too well-behaved are always so bad." Boys are still a little better skinned. You can't let him do everything, let him run to one place to show off, and then converge somewhere else, he is a man, not a god. ”
Zhu Ying began swimming at the age of 6, and at the age of 16, she could not swim and swam until she urinated and bled. In the past, everyone said that she was going to become a world champion in the future, but then she decided to use her fierceness elsewhere - "if you can't become a world champion, you have to become a world champion coach.".
Sun Yang's mother, Yang Ming, a volleyball player by birth, is an excellent main attacker and is often seconded to play, but because of the height difference of 1.5 centimeters, she failed to enter the Zhejiang provincial team.
A year before the Zhejiang Provincial Games, the two ladies reached a consensus: "The two of us are engaged in professionalism, and even my son can't go to the Provincial Games, let's fight!" From then on, if Sun Yang didn't swim well, Yang Ming let him follow his bicycle and run home.
Before the arrival of the provincial games, ten-year-old Sun Yang had a broken hand. Just after removing the plaster cast, Zhu Ying forced him to go into the water. Sun Yang said he didn't want to swim anymore and was too tired. Dealing with Sun Yang requires special methods, sometimes almost induced, such as he likes to take a car, in the coach's car is always a novelty to touch the east and west, Zhu Ying told him: You grow up, become famous, you want to buy as many cars as you want. "He thinks this is right, it's good."
In 2002, Sun Yang participated in the Zhejiang Provincial Games for the first time, winning three gold medals and one silver medal. In an interview many years later, he said, "The feeling of standing on the podium for the first time, feeling the (enthusiasm) of the audience, although the audience is not very large, but the feeling is already very good." ”
Yang Ming provoked him: If the championship is won, we will not practice. He said, "Mom, I'm going to practice."
How far a swimmer can go, Zhu Ying's judgment is first of all based on height, tall children deserve special attention, can not see their father's height. The second is to look at hard work, "when you are tired, you will be able to bite your teeth more than others." For 10-year-old children, five 400 meters are usually tired enough, and Sun Yang can swim ten. Zhu Ying has paid special attention to him since he was a child, "because he is different from others in the water, in our eyes, the team members must be three, six, nine, etc., what kind of team members do."
Even people who don't like Sun Yang anymore have to admit that he is talented, a sports person who has criticized Sun Yang told the Southern Weekend reporter, "Sun Yang's physical fitness and technology are very good, other aspects are zero mistakes, he is indeed a genius, there is no doubt about this." ”
The Southern Weekend reporter asked Sun Yang's teammate Shang Keyuan what he usually exchanged with Sun Yang. Shang Keyuan said that he would not think about "those bells and whistles" at all, only why he swam so well, but he would not really ask this question, because some natural conditions could not be envied at all.
In 2012, the 21-year-old Sun Yang won two gold medals at the London Olympics, becoming the first Olympic champion in the history of Chinese swimming. Britain's "Daily Mail" commented on the young Chinese teenager: "Swimming experts think Sun is the perfect freestyle. Paddles precisely, with a perfect body shape of six feet six inches. ”
On November 15, 2019, Sun Yang attended a hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, and a camera reporter filmed Sun Yang's statement outside the hearing venue. (Xinhua News Agency/Photo)
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<h3 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > "If you don't let my mother go, I won't practice."</h3>
When training, Zhu Ying must first get the cooperation of parents and be able to "sing double reeds" before she can fully train. If the parents are soft-hearted, "I am here to educate, you are there to drag your legs, such children will not become mature."
Of course, Sun Yang was beaten, "But he can turn around the next day, and he is happy, and he doesn't remember revenge, he knows that I am for his own good." "He himself once said that when he was a child, his mother beat him and his coach beat him, but only his father never beat him.
In Zhu Ying's view, athletes are what people can't do, "Everyone can bear it, that's not called bearing, when everyone can't bear it, you can bear it, this is what you have to do." Otherwise, why do you get more than others? ”
When the young general Hong Jinquan, known as "Little Sun Yang", disobeyed during training, Zhu Ying called his mother, "Directly it is a beating, and then thrown into the water, where it cries." Zhu Ying taught her the strategy: it is rare to come in once, not too often, "when you come in, you must be public, you must be angry, and the rhythm that kills him must be frightened."
Shao Yiwen at first studied for a month and refused to go into the water, her mother rushed in, "Teacher Zhu, you go away," she pushed her daughter into the water, "I let you die here." Summing up the Asian Games champion's experience of becoming a talent, Zhu Ying said: "This mother is good, she saw her mother like me, she surrendered." ”
Zhu Ying described the training relationship as "leading a small soldier to fight", "He knows that I am in line with him, and we are unanimous to the outside world." All my actions are in the hope that they will win the championship."
The same is true of Sun Yang's family. Since the second grade of Sun Yang Primary School, his mother Yang Ming stewed soup for him every day, and she once drove 38 kilometers on the highway on a snowy day to bring a bowl of soup to her son.
At the age of 16, Sun Yang participated in the City Games. When he played, he did not look at the referee's sign, but at yang Ming's floating on the shore. Every time he finished swimming a thousand meters, his mother waved the float to remind him, "So that I have a bottom in my heart."
In the early years, a leader of the Zhejiang Provincial Aquatics Center complained that his parents were racing with Sun Yang, "If your parents follow again, you will not compete." Sun Yang replied, "It is gold that always shines, I can't practice, if you don't let my mother go, I won't practice." In a 2012 interview with CCTV, Sun Yang took the initiative to recall the incident, "Because my mother was like ... Everyone has his lucky mascot alike. ”
In September of the same year, Sun Yang participated in the Tianjin University Games, when he had just become famous for the London Olympics and encountered the first controversy in his star career - outside the competition venue, Yang Ming angrily rebuked the reporters and volunteers who came forward to take pictures, resulting in a "big-name incident".
In Zhu Ying's view, the "love and hate distinction" in Sun Yang's temperament is the same as Yang Ming," "People who like it like it, dislike it if they don't like it, there is no 'like' and 'maybe', only right and wrong, these two people are like this." Zhu Ying admired such a temperament, but also said to Sun Yang, "(With you) will be happier, if you stand against you, it will be finished." ”
Shang Keyuan observed that Sun Yang's parents used to come to the team often, and now they are getting less and less, and when they come into contact, they can feel "very worried about it, basically they are all around Sun Yang, just like they are circling the earth."
According to Sun Yang's team, Yang Ming actually assumed part of Sun Yang's agent function. In the second half of 2019, Sun Yang participated in the recording of a reality show, and his mother was on the side the whole time, taking care of his life details such as dress. One program director recalled that when the costumes were agreed, the staff folded the clothes, and Yang Ming would open them and re-fold them.
In December 2019, Southern Weekend reporters and Yang Ming had a telephone exchange. After Sun Yang's brokerage company provided a written response to the interview, Yang Ming called reporters to express doubts and dissatisfaction. For example, she believes that the reporter's description of Sun Yang's ban in 2014 was caused by heart treatment, and the word "misdidentification" was not enough to explain Sun Yang's grievances - she stressed that the real fact was that China failed to update the new list of doping drugs issued by FINA in time, resulting in Sun Yangfang not knowing that "trimetazide" had been included in it that year.
In the process of discussion, the mother's tone gradually became excited, and she emphasized: "You see, the star group is a vulnerable group. ”
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<h3 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > "the whole career is a win-lose"</h3>
In the Zhejiang Provincial Swimming Team, the team's birthdays are usually spent in the swimming pool: buy a cake, everyone sings a birthday song around, sings the foam board to smoke the birthday star's ass, and pumps him from the departure platform into the water. This glorious task is generally given to the athletes with the most strength or fame, but Sun Yang is too busy and often absent.
After winning the provincial games, Sun Yang was selected by coach Zhu Zhigen to join the provincial team, when he was only in the fifth grade of primary school, and the general inductees were at least the second grade. Sun Yang's childhood trajectory completed a seamless docking between the swimming teams, and there were very few childhood playmates, "There was no amateur life at all, there was no time and no way to communicate with people, only a few male classmates in the team, supervisors, mothers, and then talk to me twice." Zhu Ying told Southern Weekend reporters.
Coming to the provincial team, Sun Yang is still diligent. The coach set the goal that he practiced from a lot, occasionally took a vacation home, and he also tried to find a way to train every day. But he is by no means the kind of person who is stoic, tired of swimming, he will complain, he will cry. "He complained the most, but after complaining, he traveled faster and faster," Hong Jinquan told Southern Weekend reporters.
Living in sports schools, training for more than six hours a day, if you go out, you must return to the dormitory before 9:30 p.m., and if you want more leisure, you have to wait until the weekend, and take a half-day off every Sunday morning. The National Day holiday is one day, and the year-round holiday is only about 15 days. Teammates are the best friends in their lives. People know that athletes are very tired, but Shang Keyuan describes that tiredness is "tired today and tired tomorrow, tired tomorrow and tired the day after tomorrow, no head."
Sun Yang lives in a single room, and the rest of the team members have a dormitory for two people, which looks no different from an ordinary school building. But athletes have to follow a lot of rules: go to bed, eat on time, can't eat meat outside (to avoid adding ingredients), and if you are sick, many medicines can't be used. Female athletes are easily troubled by snacks and affect their body shape; the problem of boys is to stay up late to play games and be recognized by coaches the next day with dark circles.
The flight drug test will come at any time, the inspector contacts the athlete, accurate to the room number, directly to the door, Shang Keyuan has undergone seven examinations in a month, and the hands are all needle eyes. At the hearing at the International Court of Arbitration for Sport, WADA lawyers said Sun Yang had undergone nearly 200 drug tests.
The life of the sports school is a constraint on people. "Birdcage-like, if you've been 'closed' here, if you're there, you're not comfortable." Shang Keyuan told Southern Weekend reporters that everyone usually "has been regretting it, but never gave up."
The team members privately called Zhu Zhigen "boss". A team member told Southern Weekend reporters that in the two years when the boss was the most severe, he would hit people with foam boards, "it won't hurt, just to make us remember for a long time." Shang Keyuan said, "I'm still very afraid of him." But they all believe that if the coach is not strict, he is not responsible. If you feel that you really can't bear the training plan, you can communicate with the coach privately, but you must not disobey in public and wipe the coach's face.
In 2012, CCTV sports figures presented awards to Sun Yang, who said that Zhu Zhigen will always be the No. 1 in his heart. After that, he and Zhu Zhigen had many frictions, and contradictions and reconciliations were repeatedly reported in the news.
On March 4, 2013, many media came to the entrance of the swimming pool of Zhejiang Sports Vocational and Technical College to witness the reconciliation of Sun Yang and Zhu Zhigen, and Sun Yang gave the coach a hug. During their conflict, vice president Zhang Yadong served as Sun Yang's coach, and he said at the scene, "Under the three premises of consistent interests, consistent actions and consistent goals, the two quickly reached a comprehensive consensus." However, Sun Yang did not return soon, until a few months later, Zhu Zhigen held a press conference again, publicly demanding that Sun Yang return to his door.
In January 2013, Sun Yang was running a Porsche and was scraped by a bus, and after the passengers called the police, Sun Yang was found driving without a license and was placed in administrative detention for seven days. The China Swimming Management Center, the Chinese Swimming Team, and the Zhejiang Sports Vocational and Technical College punished him, suspending him, suspending training, and stopping commercial and social activities.
When encountering troubles, Sun Yang would go back to visit Zhu Ying more often. He was already very big, and he returned to Chen Jinglun's small pool to occupy a whole waterline, swim and play with the children. During that time, Zhu Ying was even a little afraid to see him come back, "I knew that there was something wrong again, he called, I was nervous."
Zhu Ying believes that among all these troubles of Sun Yang, the contradiction with Zhu Zhigen is the one that he cares about the most. "Athletes win and lose all their careers, fall down, get up and fight again. Many of the things that you seem serious about are, in our case, understated. Zhu Ying told the Southern Weekend reporter, "What we are most afraid of is that our relatives will harm us." Like the coach doesn't understand you, mom and dad don't understand you, you'll feel sad. ”
In 2016, Sun Yang returned to Zhu Zhigen again. According to Shang Keyuan's observation, after returning, the exchange between Sun Yang and Zhu Zhigen seems to be more mature, for the world champion, "you can be allowed to be small and willful, in our sports world, it should all rely on sports performance, no matter what kind of person you are, as long as you have results, you are strong, you can talk to other people about conditions, talk to coaches about conditions." ”
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<h3 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "Am I wrong?" </h3>
Once, Sun Yang invited Zhu Ying to record a reality SHOW on CCTV. There were too many cameras, and Zhu Ying shook her eyes by the pool. She found that "we are still ordinary people, he has been shining under fluorescent lights for a long time"
Ye Zi, the director of the variety show who has been in charge of Sun Yang, said that his impression of him is that he is "a big boy who is very playful." In 2013, shortly after Sun Yanggang signed a contract with an agency, the program team invited him to participate in the filming and arranged entertainment projects such as motorboats on the lake, and Sun Yang couldn't stop playing. He said, "It's a rare few days to let me out, I have to play."
At that time, Sun Yang did not have much experience in the program, did not know how to integrate into other stars, and sometimes stood silly next to him without saying a word. He participated seriously, and after recording a paragraph, he would always ask the director: Is it okay to just perform? But after a long recording time, hungry and tired, Sun Yang will complain directly. "If you have a little temper, it's good to appease." Leaf said.
In the years that followed, star Sun Yang was still often caught up in a whirlpool of controversy: he commented on the Japanese national anthem "ugly" at the Incheon Asian Games, which was heard and announced by agency agency reporters, and later Sun Yang made a public apology; sun Yang had a verbal altercation with a Brazilian female athlete in the warm-up pool during the Kazan World Championships; at the award ceremony at the Jakarta Asian Games, Sun Yang wore a personal endorsement brand of clothing to the podium, and the official sponsor of the Chinese delegation subsequently issued a protest statement.
When the negative news was at its most intensive, Sun Yang once told the media: "I was bored in my room for three days, did not eat, did not sleep, did not train, every day on the Internet to see how others commented on me, and then I also lowered my hat for fear of being recognized, except for my parents and my team I really do not trust anyone, all the people who approach me I first judge that this may be a bad person." At that time, I did think about retiring, but I was still unwilling. ”
Zhang Bin, a CCTV reporter who has interviewed Sun Yang many times, said to him, "Many people are eager to read your progress from the gold medal, and this progress is not only a result, not only the color of the medal, many people are especially looking forward to this to prove your maturity." ”
Over the years, Ye Zi has been paying attention to other programs that Sun Yang has participated in, and found that he is gradually not as "grinning and not so much in the past", and now "it is obvious that he wants to think about how to say it before he speaks".
People around Sun Yang often talk about "we want to protect him". One reason for this is that few people can understand the pressure on Sun Yang. Shang Keyuan told Southern Weekend reporters that swimmers ranked in the top eight in the country will feel that "the country needs you" .
Before the London Olympics, the coach relayed to Sun Yang the words of his superiors - "The success or failure of Chinese swimming... It depends on whether you can win the gold medal tomorrow, you take the gold medal chinese swimming will become, if you lose, Chinese swimming will be an era behind. ”
Fans have also joined the camp to protect Sun Yang. Xi Qian, one of the heads of the Sun Yang Support Association, said that they like Sun Yang because "he is top, we only like the strongest." The daily work of fans is "control comments", especially in the news period, search for "Sun Yang", the media Weibo that appears must control the comments at the first time - give positive comments like replies to make them hot reviews, negative comments let it sink, "can not delay a second."
This is a common practice among fans of the entertainment industry. "It's not the media that has the final say, and the media sometimes doesn't know much more than we know." Sissi said she did this to "tell everyone what the facts are."
When Zhu Ying met reporters who came to interview, she would ask them to protect and tolerate Sun Yang more. "Because sports stars and stars are not the same, athletes don't come into contact with society, he's just training, so you suddenly want to make him a dual identity, he can't do it well." Athletes are actually very simple, don't think of athletes as complicated. ”
Zhu Ying remembers that Sun Yang has loved to cry since she was a child, and she often cries when she talks, and she is also annoyed, "Can you not cry at me." He grew to 1 meter 7, and Zhu Ying also tied his pants belt, "He can't tie a trouser belt, his hands are particularly stupid." It's not an exaggeration, the belt is knotted, and I still have to bite, bite the belt. She remembered, "Busy playing, 'What about Teacher Zhu?'" He stood like a fool. ”
After Sun Yang became the captain of the national swimming team, he swung to Zhu Yingxian, who invited the team members to breakfast. "You think of a man who is almost 30 years old, you can't imagine his point is here, give him a small position, he cares too much, he likes it." 」 Zhu Ying said.
Zhu Ying always advised Sun Yang to slowly learn to get along with the outside world - "You are a public figure, you are very shiny, what you need is to give the public something, because people expect to see you." ”
Sun Yang still often expressed puzzlement to Zhu Ying: "I haven't hurt others, am I wrong?" ”
"After all these years, he seems to have become a rebel, and things seem to have turned out to be wrong with him." Zhu Ying told Southern Weekend reporters.
Every time he came back to see Zhu Ying, Sun Yang would repeatedly ask: "I am your best athlete, I am the best for you, isn't it?" ”
Zhu Ying replied: Good, good. "He's happy."
(Ye Zi and Xi Qian are pseudonyms.) All interviews in this article were completed prior to the announcement of the results of the hearings of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. ）