The summer of 2008 made all Chinese unforgettable.
That summer, the 29th Summer Olympic Games were successfully held in Beijing, the first time China had hosted the Olympic Games. Chinese athletes created "unparalleled" brilliance at home, and finally topped the gold medal list with 51 gold medals, becoming the first Asian country in Olympic history to reach the top of the gold medal list.
As a major sports province, Shandong has sent many outstanding sports talents to the country, who work the field and win glory for the country. Time flies, the heroic athletes of the former arena have long retired and gradually left the public eye, but they are still silently dedicating their strength to the cause of sports, and on this special day today, we relive their gold medals and review their life course in the past decade.
Time is like an arrow, so let's take this arrow back to ten years ago. In the women's individual event final of the Beijing Olympic Archery Competition, when the last arrow was sent from Zhang Juanjuan's hand, the Chinese team won the 21st gold medal of that Olympic Games. This gold medal is not easy to come by, starting from the quarter-finals, Zhang Juanjuan won three consecutive Korean famous players to win the first gold medal in the history of the Olympic Games for the Chinese archery team, thus breaking the myth of "Korea is undefeated".
Zhang Juanjuan defeated the entire Korean team one by one
Success is never easy to come by, even Zhang Juanjuan, who is "born for archery" in the eyes of others, has experienced trepidation, nervousness and overwhelmed. "In fact, the pressure to compete at home is quite strong, because I won the silver medal at the Athens Olympics, so I have a higher positioning and goal for myself, and my desire for gold medals is also very strong."
Recalling the moment of winning the championship again, 37-year-old Zhang Juanjuan can still immediately present all the scenes in front of her eyes, "Before the Beijing Olympics, my state was not particularly good, because the athletes' preparation was cyclical, so there would also be some ups and downs of the state." I was in particularly good shape in June 2008, but when August approached the start of the Olympic Games, my form was a bit down, and I was very nervous. ”
Zhang Juanjuan won the precious gold medal
Zhang Juanjuan said that because the ranking competition was not good at that time, when it came to the team competition, she kept telling herself that she could not drag her feet and could not embarrass her fathers and fellow villagers, so she constantly adjusted her mentality. "When the individual game, the heart gradually has a bottom, the action, positioning the target, the emotional control during the game are suddenly clear, coupled with the home atmosphere, it feels like the whole person has thrown off the baggage, relaxed on the team, and the mentality is also much calmer."
A game in the rain
After completing the Olympic journey to achieve the dream of gold medal in her heart, in 2009 Zhang Juanjuan entered the palace of marriage, her husband Xue Haifeng is also an archer, once the "brother" of the Chinese archery men's team, won the bronze medal of the archery boy group at the Beijing Olympic Games, and now serves as the coach of the Shandong Provincial Archery Team. After getting married, Zhang Juanjuan still couldn't put down archery, and didn't choose to retire until after the 2013 Liaoning National Games. Now this pair of "Divine Arrow Heroes" have two sons, the eldest son is more than 7 years old, the younger son is less than 2 years old, under the protection of her husband Xue Haifeng and two little men, Zhang Juanjuan is very happy.
Zhang Juanjuan and Xue Haifeng entered the marriage hall
Although Zhang Juanjuan left the field after retirement, she did not stay away from the archery project, and previously led the provincial team to train, but because her husband Xue Haifeng was busy with work and needed to take care of two children, she shifted her focus to her family, and is currently serving as the assistant director of the Qingdao Training Center under the Shandong Provincial Sports Bureau. "After retiring from the army, I led the provincial team to train for a while, and I realized that the athletes were really hard, the training was hard, the competition was hard, and it was not easy to play the results, but I didn't feel hard during my athlete period, and archery was focused on career and ideals."
Witnessed the development and growth of archery
Zhang Juanjuan admitted that life after retirement is indeed much more comfortable than when she was an athlete, without the hard work of training and the pressure of competition, but she can't put down the archery project and has been paying attention to it. "In the past two or three years, archery projects have attracted more and more attention and understanding from everyone, many places have introduced the promotion and popularization of traditional bow education into campuses, and some archery clubs across the country have also developed well." Zhang Juanjuan, who has been vigorously promoting archery throughout the country in recent years, said that she hopes to continue to let more people like archery and understand archery through her own strength.
After retiring from the army, Zhang Juanjuan did her best to promote archery