A 16-year-old skateboard girl broke into Tokyo, and Zeng Wenhui was the 6th and had no regrets

Zeng Wenhui came to Tokyo through cross-border material selection and contact with skateboarding. Figure/IC photo

On July 26, the women's street competition in the Skateboarding Event at the Tokyo Olympics was held at the Ariake City Sports Park, where the top 20 female skaters competed for hours, including 16-year-old Chinese teenager Zeng Wenhui. Skateboarding debuted on the Olympic stage, zeng Wenhui also became the first Chinese athlete to participate in the Olympic skateboarding competition, daring to fight and finally won the 6th place with 9.66 points.

Xi Wu for 6 years

The first practice was difficult to cry for half an hour

Born in February 2005 in Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, Zeng Wenhui began practicing martial arts at the age of 6 and later joined the municipal martial arts team. At that time, the main subject was marksmanship and swordsmanship, and the coach's evaluation of her was that she knew how to think and had a flexible mind. After practicing martial arts for nearly 6 years, Zeng Wenhui's sports career has taken a turning point, and an opportunity to cross-border materials has exposed her to skateboarding.

In 2016, the International Olympic Committee announced skateboarding for the Olympic Games. In the summer of 2017, six skateboard training teams were formed, and Zeng Wenhui was selected that summer to officially switch from martial arts to skateboarding. "Maybe the coach thinks I'm young and have potential." Zeng Wenhui also thought it was fun at first, and the feeling of skateboarding was quite refreshing.

It was not until the basic movements were learned and the coach began to teach difficult movements and articulations that Zeng Wenhui realized that what was most needed in the skateboarding project was guts. "The first time I got off the bar, I stood there crying for half an hour, scared." With the encouragement of coaches and teammates, Zeng Wenhui learned one difficult action after another, and the results of the competition also rose.

At the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, she represented The Chinese team in the women's street final, and Zeng Wenhui won the 4th place. "I had only been in contact with skateboarding for more than a year, and my control over skateboarding was not so strong, and the difficulty of movement was not so high, far less powerful than other skaters." Gaining and recognizing his shortcomings, Zeng Wenhui became more diligent in training.

At the 2019 and 2020 National Skateboarding Championships, Zeng Wenhui won the women's street championship for two consecutive years, and had a clear advantage in the domestic arena of the project. In June this year, although Zeng Wenhui missed the final of the Skateboard street world championships, she ensured that she earned enough Olympic points to become one of the 20 skaters participating in the women's street competition at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

China's only seedlings

There are no regrets in the preliminary round of the bright trick final

At this year's Tokyo Olympics, only two Chinese skaters qualified, Zeng Wenhui participated in the street competition, and Zhang Xin got the ticket for the bowl and pool competition. The street competition took the lead, and compared with the scale of Japan, the United States and Brazil with three people each participating, 16-year-old Zeng Wenhui was alone.

The 20 skaters are divided into 4 groups, each group competes in 7 rounds, the first two rounds are time-limited line races, the last 5 rounds are "bright moves" in turn, and the best 4 results in the 7 rounds are added up to the total score. Zeng Wenhui was placed in Group 4, with all 20 skaters, and her appearance order was last, and the same group included two Brazilian skaters and an American skater.

The line race is not Zeng Wenhui's strong point, scoring only 1.66 points and 2.42 points in the first two rounds. In the subsequent "Bright Moves" session, Zeng Wenhui began to amaze the whole field, and scored a high score of 4.92 points on the first attempt, which was the third highest score of all the players in the preliminary round, and then scored 3.31 points, and broke into the final with 12.31 points.

Before the Tokyo Olympics, Zeng Wenhui said that the primary goal was to reach the final, "of course, to strive for the best results and play the best strength." Although she did not stand on the podium, she had no regrets.

The Beijing News sent a special Tokyo reporter Xu Bangyin to report

Edited by Wang Xichong