In 1992, at the age of 20, Zhuang Yong defeated The American Thompson at the 25th Barcelona Olympic Games to win the gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle and become China's first Olympic swimming champion. However, no one expected that she was in the golden age, and soon after winning the gold medal, she announced her retirement.
Zhuang Yong was born in 1972 to an ordinary family in Shanghai. She has been particularly close to water since she was a child. When her aunt found out, she took her for a swim. Unexpectedly, after only teaching her for a while, she learned. This surprised her aunt and thought she had a talent for swimming. So at the suggestion of his aunt, 7-year-old Zhuang Yong was sent to swimming school to learn to swim.
Of course, the family only cultivated swimming as a hobby of Zhuang Yong, and no one expected that she would go farther and farther down this road. However, the coach who taught her at the time, Xu Renhui, saw the potential and talent of Zhuang Yong, so in the process of teaching her to swim, he deliberately trained her physical strength and endurance. Under the training of Xu Renhui, Zhuang Yong's swimming skills have made great progress.
In 1984, at the age of 12, Zhuang Yong entered the Shanghai provincial team with excellent swimming results and officially became a swimmer. She has a slender body, flexible movements, and very good physical fitness, so she has received the attention of the coach Zheng Zhengguang. Under the guidance of professionals, coupled with her very hard work, she quickly stood out in the swimming team and became the main member of the swimming team.
In 1985, in order to develop sports, the state held the first National Youth Youth Games in Zhengzhou, Henan. More than 8,000 athletes participated in that grand competition, and Zhuang Yong was fortunate to participate in that event, and won 3 gold medals and 3 silver medals in the swimming competition, which was famous for a while. Many people even call her a "swimming genius".
At that time, the national swimming team was only recently created, and talented swimmers like Zhuang Yong had to be recruited into the national team. In the national training team, Zhuang Yong's head coach is Zhou Ming, in order to make Zhuang Yong produce results, Zhou Ming has developed high-intensity training for her, so that she can improve her performance rapidly through continuous breakthroughs.
Zhuang Yong's luck was also quite good, and after only one year of training with the national team, she participated in the first Pan Pacific Swimming Championships and won the silver medal in the 400m women's freestyle relay with her teammates. Subsequently, in the 100m freestyle of the 6th National Games, Zhuang Yong won the championship with a time of 56.22 seconds and broke the Asian record.
In 1988, Zhuang Yong won another gold medal at the National Swimming Championships. As a result, she was included in the roster for the 24th Seoul Olympic Games.
For athletes, becoming an Olympic champion is their greatest wish. Moreover, at that time, China's swimming projects were still in a state of obscurity in the world, and athletes needed to add luster to it.
Therefore, in order to prepare for the Olympic Games, Zhuang Yong trained harder than usual. In the Olympic 100-meter freestyle, Zhuang Yong finally won the silver medal with a time of 55.47 seconds, and she became the first athlete in Olympic history to win a medal in swimming competitions.
Despite the gratifying results, Zhuang Yong saw his shortcomings through the competition. So after she returned to the team, she threw herself into more intense and arduous training. In her opinion, with her physique and physical strength are not inferior to European swimmers, she is not strong enough in training. She is eagerly looking forward to winning the gold medal in the Olympic Games again in four years and winning honors for the country.
Because of the goal, Zhuang Yong not only completed the coach's training tasks in training, she also set herself additional tasks every day. Under the scientific training, Zhuang Yong broke through the limit, and her swimming performance continued to rise.
In 1989, Zhuang Yong broke the Asian records for the women's 100m and women's 200m freestyles again at the third Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, and she won the 100m freestyle again.
After hard training and constant competition, Zhuang Yong began her highlight moments.
In 1990, in the swimming competition of the Beijing Asian Games, Zhuang Yong played very well, she won four gold medals in the women's 100m freestyle, the women's 200m freestyle, the women's 400m freestyle relay and the medley relay, and she became a household name star athlete.
In 1992, the 25th Olympic Games were held in Barcelona. As the hope star of the swimming team, Zhuang Yong is naturally the only representative of the competition. At this time, Zhuang Yongbi participated in the Olympic Games for the first time, not only improved his skills a lot, but also matured his psychological quality a lot.
In the course of the women's 100m freestyle, Zhuang Yong bravely moved forward, leaving one opponent after another behind, and finally she defeated world record holder Thompson to win the gold medal. He became the first athlete in the history of Chinese swimming to win an Olympic gold medal and was recorded in the annals of sports history.
At this time, Zhuang Yong has become a national hero, and after she returned to China, she was surrounded by flowers and applause. Everyone is looking forward to her continuing to work hard and continue to fight for gold and silver for the country.
However, no one expected that Zhuang Yong chose to retire after winning a gold, silver and a bronze medal at the National Games in 1993. You know, at this time, she was only 21 years old, which was the golden age of sports, but no matter how the leaders and coaches retained, she made up her mind and said goodbye to her swimming career.
At that time, Zhuang Yong was a star-like figure, but she did not choose to marry into the giants, nor did she wait for the national team to arrange a job for her, but went to Hong Kong.
You know, at that time, Hong Kong was really much more prosperous than the mainland, and Hong Kong's film and television industry and entertainment industry were also like dream factories, constantly introducing film and television stars and singers.
Although Zhuang Yong has achieved great success in swimming, she is very curious about the film and television industry. Therefore, after she came to Hong Kong, she first participated in several film and television dramas, but she never had the opportunity to be the heroine. Later, she became a sports host. Despite her income, Zhuang Yong has always felt that whether it is filming or being a host, these two jobs do not seem to fit her personality, so she does not feel particularly happy.
During that period, Zhuang Yong also met Liu Yong, a sports journalist who was also an athlete, and the two held a wedding after a short love, and then the couple went to Singapore in order to develop a career, but the career was not yet successful, and the marriage between the two lit up with a red light, and finally the two ended in divorce.
After the divorce, Zhuang Yong returned to Shanghai to start her business. In 1998, she and a friend founded Tulip Media and started doing outdoor advertising.
Although Zhuang Yong does not understand business economics, she has a great advantage, that is, she likes to study and learn. She not only communicates a lot with her peers, but also often meets with Olympic champions such as Li Ning and Li Xiaoshuang, and chats about entrepreneurship and capital together.
With the passage of time, Zhuang Yong has become more and more experienced and courageous in the company's operation, and the company's business is thriving, and the business is getting bigger and bigger.
While achieving results in his career, Zhuang Yong also met Shen Jianqiang, who is also a swimmer. At that time, Shen Jianqiang had retired from the army and opened 4 "Shen Jianqiang Swimming Pools" in Shanghai, dedicated to cultivating swimming talents for the country.
Under the pursuit of Shen Qiang, Zhuang Yong came together with him. The two gave birth to a son and a daughter, and now the family lives a very happy life.
When interviewing Zhuang Yong, a reporter once asked her why she retired so early? Zhuang Yong said with a smile that at that time, the training was too hard, soaking in the pool every day, not as good as the track and field athletes, at least they could look up at the blue sky and white clouds. Later, after becoming an Olympic champion, I felt that I had won all the awards I could get, and I had no motivation for a while. At that time, I was particularly afraid, afraid that after failure, time would be wasted again, so it was better to change my lifestyle. That's why she chose to retire.
Zhuang Yong also said that although the status of Olympic champion has brought a lot of dividends to her later career. However, if you want to do a good job, you must also do things in a down-to-earth manner. At that time, entrepreneurship also took many detours and cried a lot. But after all, she was born as an athlete, and she developed a stubborn temper that did not admit defeat. So later, she still persevered, and finally got today's self.
Seeing that the former Olympic champion has now transformed into a business master, I have to admire Zhuang Yong's original choice. May she be as wonderful as ever in the days to come.