Speaking of retired sports stars, you will definitely remember Yao Ming, Liu Xiang, and other well-known Olympic champions, who once put medals under China's name and won us supreme honors in international competitions.
But of the tens of thousands of athletes, only a few are well known to the public. Almost no one knows their later development, fortunately becoming a sports star active in front of the screen, unfortunately landing alive, and even difficult to make a living.
Zou Chunlan is the unfortunate one, she was once the national women's weightlifting champion, only ten years of brilliant achievements, but in exchange for half a life of turmoil and twists.
Zou Chunlan's entry into the road of weightlifting was an accident that had not been planned. Unlike the athletes who aspired to enter the national team since childhood, she is a wild player who is halfway out of the family and only started training for the first time at the age of 14.
At this age, she had actually missed the golden age of training, but the pressure of life forced her to rush to the hospital.
When the first work team in Jilin Province was recruited, she heard that the training team not only covered food and housing, but also received a salary, which made Zou Chunlan, who was poor in family, immediately moved her heart, not only to solve her own food and clothing, but also to supplement her family, and she did not think about what kind of hardships she would experience after joining the team, and this training was ten years.
Three minutes on stage, ten years offstage, this sentence perfectly interprets Zou Chunlan. It wasn't until her fourth year that she had the opportunity to reach the ring, where she competed in numerous competitions, large and small, with the highest result being the National Women's Weightlifting Championship.
It sounds like it's going well, and maybe outsiders are lucky to see her, but the only difficulty is that people drink cold and warm water.
Zou Chunlan's six-year racing career was the highlight of her life, but it also made her pay a lifetime price.
Athletes' careers were short, and retired fighters all left the arena with wounds and tears. Zou Chunlan is no exception, in just ten years she has been scarred, can only use a meager subsidy as a "resignation letter", forced to end a decade-long weightlifting career.
Zero fell into mud and dust. Without any skill, let alone background, Zou Chunlan encountered a bottleneck in her life after retiring, and how to survive became a major problem for her.
Years of closed training have turned her into a little white who does not know how to survive in society, like a winged eagle thrown under a cliff, and there is no sky to soar for her.
After leaving the arena, Zou Chunlan lost his fighting spirit.
But life does not be kind to anyone because of pity, she can only find some low-level labor work, once washing dishes in the canteen, selling kebabs, and even working as a bather in the bathhouse.
Any job that can exchange labor for survival Zou Chunlan is not rejected. We all know that there is no hierarchy in work, and all kinds of work are worthy of respect. But as a former national champion, it is inevitable to attract attention.
During her days as a bather, Zou Chunlan was identified by a guest. Zou Chunlan, who did not care about the things outside her body, was originally unimpressed, but as more and more guests served, more and more people recognized her face.
Soon the news spread to the ears of the media, and Zou Chunlan's peaceful life once again set off waves. The news is overwhelmingly known to the public, and headlines of all kinds are endless, full of frivolous and even mocking meanings.
For Zou Chunlan's own life, this may not have any impact, but for the national women's weightlifting champion, it is an uproar in the crowd joke. She can ignore her own image, but she can't care less about the competition of women's weightlifting.
Fortunately, after experiencing hardships, the sports bureau to which it belongs has paid attention to this long-forgotten star of yesterday, and Zou Chunlan's hard days can be regarded as surviving.
Life has never stopped testing anyone, and Zou Chunlan's regrets in life are not just events. As an athlete who retired early, he was in his twenties and could not have a complete life.
Since ancient times, women have not been as healthy as men, which cannot be denied by any period of social development. Therefore, many sports are initiated by male athletes first, and women who are not far behind later participate and mature, of which weightlifting is one of the most representative projects of this kind.
When she was young, Zou Chunlan was ignorant, received unified military guidance during training, and took hormone supplement pills for a long time like all female players, and this dose directly ruined her right to have children.
Zou Chunlan is the traditional idea that we Chinese, she is a woman who is looking forward to starting a family and having children, not to mention when she has love. This realization is undoubtedly a heavy concern for her.
Whether it is out of the desire for the family or the guilt of the lover, Zou Chunlan will always continue to live with this disappointment, that is to say, no matter how happy days will be in the future, it will not be enough to give her happiness without burden.
Perhaps Zou Chunlan never thought that she would lose so much because of this decade, which is the common sadness of sports people.
But although life is full of hardships, it still remembers to give back something beautiful to people, just like crossing the rugged hills and blooming flowers on the road. Beautiful love is not absent in her life, and Zou Chunlan met her soul mate Lao Zhou at the best age.
The love between the two is ordinary but precious, and the years spent with each other are a widely circulated good story. Although the reality of childlessness under the knee is placed in the hearts of both parties, it does not affect their feelings in the slightest, how can such love be encountered and unattainable?
After Zou Chunlan received the normal subsidy, her life only improved day by day. Unable to stay idle, she began to pour out the laundromat, which was her first job that did not rely on pure labor, breaking through the previous closed personality, and the sports career was over, but the courage of sports people to break through their own spirit was engraved in her blood.
What is even more gratifying is that after she relied on her own strength to improve her life, she immediately threw herself into the development of charity, poor children have her relief, earthquake-stricken areas have her donations, after decades of ups and downs, she has retained a gentle and pure heart.
Zou Chunlan is not a person who pursues fame and profit in this life, she finds a tranquility at the bottom of the valley, waiting for the bouquet of flowers that belong to her, the world kisses you bitterly, you still sing in return. This sentence is probably the true portrayal of Zou Chunlan.
As Baudelaire said: The flowers that bloom in suffering are more beautiful because she is not easy. It is very apt to describe Zou Chunlan, who came from suffering, broke free from the shackles, broke through the mud, and finally bloomed brilliantly.