Rong Guotuan: Life can have several beats

Source: People's Daily - People's Daily

Statue of Rong Guotuan. Xinhua News Agency

In 2009, Rong Guotuan was elected as one of the "100 Chinese Objects That Have Touched Since the Founding of New China". Won the title of "The Most Beautiful Strivers".

Rong Guotuan was the first person in New China to win the world championship, and was also a member of the first team world championship team, and also led the team to win the first women's team world championship. He shouted out that "life can have several beats", which still affects Chinese sports people...

Born in 1937 in Hong Kong to a family of seafarers, Rong Guotuan first attended an overseas Chinese school in his hometown of Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, with excellent grades and a lot of effort to learn to play, and transferred to a Kindergarten school in Hong Kong in early 1948. In february 1957, at the Hong Kong Table Tennis Championships, Yung Represented the Federation of Trade Unions and won the men's team, men's singles and men's doubles championships with his teammates. In September of that year, Rong Guotuan visited Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou as a member of the Hong Kong and Macao table tennis team and saw the prosperity of the motherland. Two months later, he resolutely crossed the Luohu Bridge and threw himself into the embrace of the motherland.

In the spring of 1959, the XXV World Table Tennis Championships were held in Dortmund, Federal Republic of Germany. In the men's singles final on April 5, Rong Guotuan played against Hungarian veteran Sido, who has won nine world championships. Previously, Rong Guotuan eliminated 6 strong players.

Lost in the first set of the final. After that, The commander of The Rong Guo Regiment combined short and "soft and hard", mobilized the opponent to run left and right, retreated forward and backward, won 3 consecutive sets, and won the championship. For the first time, the St. Brad's Cup, representing the highest level of the individual, is inscribed with the name of Chinese.

In 1961, the 26th World Table Tennis Championships were held in Beijing, and the Chinese and Japanese teams fought fiercely. Before the final round, Rong Guotuan roared out the famous words that best represented his spirit of life: "Life can have several beats, at this time do not fight, let alone when!" In the end, the Chinese team defeated the Japanese team 5-3 and won the men's team championship of the World Table Tennis Championships for the first time.

In the spring of 1965, when the 28th World Table Tennis Championships opened in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, Rong Guotuan had been the coach for two years, and had only been the head coach of the women's team for four months. Nevertheless, he was in the chest and commanded Ruoding. The Chinese women's team defeated the Japanese team that won the championship six times with a clear advantage, and won the Cup for the first time. Foreign news agencies commented: "Chinese this bold strategy will be passed on as a good story in the world table tennis scene." This victory convincingly saw the rising sun of the new China. ”

People's Daily ( 2021-06-02 06 edition)