7 gold and 5 silver! This is the outstanding record of the Chinese diving dream team in the Tokyo Olympics. Since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the Chinese diving team has won 47 gold medals. Diving is still the event that my country has won the most gold medals in the Olympics.
In the diving dream team, the tradition is to bring the old to the new, and the baton of continuous struggle is passed on from generation to generation. At the Tokyo Olympics, the 14-year-old Quan Hongchan, the youngest athlete in the Chinese sports delegation, performed particularly eye-catching. With the stable output of superb technology and a “big heart”, he succeeded in writing the glory of Chinese diving and showing it to the world. The style of China’s “post-00s”. In the women’s 10-meter platform finals, she created a three-jump full score and a total score of 466.20 points in history. This gold medal helped the Chinese diving team achieve four consecutive championships in this event since the 2008 Beijing Olympics. At the same time, this score is also the best result in history in the Olympics, World Championships, and World Cup since FINA implemented the new diving scoring rules in 2006.
In the women’s 10-meter platform, it is not uncommon to see examples of youth becoming famous. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, 13-year-old Fu Mingxia won the women’s 10-meter platform champion. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, three-time Olympian Chen Ruolin became the Olympic gold medalist at the age of 23. Today, the 14-year-old Quan Hongchan has taken over the baton of her sisters with a swift “back wave”.
“Quan Hongchanhui Splash Disappearance Technique” “The splashes of my dumplings are bigger than her”… Quan Hongchan’s perfect performance has won fancy praises from netizens. Chen Yuxi, who was crowned the champion of the 2019 World Championships at the age of 14, has already felt the power of the “back wave”: “I saw myself in Quan Hongchan, but she was more powerful than me. The details of the action are more perfect and outstanding than me.” Even Olympic champion Guo Jingjing expressed envy: “Xiaoquan jumped 3 full marks, I am very envious. I have been jumping for 20 years, and I haven’t skipped so many full marks. Xiaoquan jumped out all in one game.”
How to master such excellent water pressure skills? Quan Hongchan’s answer was a little unintentionally “Versailles”: “I didn’t feel it, and it was only occasionally in training. I didn’t expect to have such a good result this time.” However, Quan Hongchan also revealed the “secret” of water pressure. ——Training day after day.
Netizens who understand Quan Hongchan’s growth experience expressed such emotions: “With talent and hard work, who is not made into steel!”
Talent combined with hard work gave Quan Hongchan the wings of dreams and gave her the experience of rapid growth. In 2014, she passed the selection of Zhanjiang Sports School, entered the sports school diving team and began to receive basic sports training. At the National Championship in October 2020, at the age of 13, she defeated a number of Olympic champions and world champions for the first time in the national competition, and won the championship with a high score of 437.75 points, becoming a true dark horse. At that time, Zhou Jihong, the leader of the Chinese diving team, said after the game that Quan Hongchan’s “turned out” exceeded expectations. And three weeks before the game, she only learned all five moves. It was precisely in the first round of trials that restarted after the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics that he performed well, and Quan Hongchan had the opportunity to qualify for the Olympics.
He Weiyi, Quan Hongchan’s coach in Guangdong, considers her a “talented” player. “Her jumping ability, waist and abdomen ability are outstanding among her peers, and her figure meets the criteria for selection of divers. She has a slender figure, beautiful toes and knees, good flexibility, and better control than her peers. Her hands are suitable for pressing water. The hand ability is relatively strong, and you can lift 10 handstands in a row.” In addition, in He Weiyi’s view, Quan Hongchan is also the most hard-bearing among the same group of athletes. It’s about 120 jumps.”
Chen Huaming, Quan Hongchan’s enlightenment coach, has the same feeling: “Quan Hongchan has shown talent since she was a child. Her personality is very clear, even if she is aggressive, she is also very smart, and has a strong comprehension ability, especially suitable for diving. Quan Hongchan usually trains She won’t cry tired and cry hard, she can eat the biggest amount of exercise here.” Chen Huaming said frankly that Quan Hongchan’s “splash disappearing technique” has innate advantages in hand shape, but more of it comes from acquired hard work.
Quan Hongchan’s growth process is not without “bumps.” At that time, she was in the limelight in the second Olympic trials in January this year, because of a mistake on the 207C, she only ranked fifth. In the post-match interview, Quan Hongchan said that in fact, this action was very good in training, but he was excited during the game and it was too much if he wanted to exert his strength. In order to practice this movement well, Quan Hongchan has to practice it every day. She laughed and said, “I go back and dance every day, sometimes I have to jump 10 times, which makes me tired.” Heaven rewards the diligence. The National Diving Championship in May 2021 is the third stop of the Olympic selection. Quan Hongchan regrouped and jumped out. A super high score of 440.85 points to win the championship again. Not only did she perform well on the 407C, which she is best at, she scored 10 points from 4 referees and scored a highest score of 94.40 points. At the same time, she also scored a good score of 94.05 points on the 207C that made a mistake in the last race.
The Chinese diving team is a veritable “dream team”. The success of the Chinese diving team has not only condensed the wisdom of generations of Chinese diving people, but also poured into the youth of the strugglers, it is a manifestation of China’s sports and national strength. During the Tokyo Olympic cycle, the Chinese diving team perfected the four-level training network, established a complete training system, and improved training quality; emphasized research on difficult new technologies and innovation in training methods; established a scientific and institutionalized competition system to strive to increase the rate of success. Just like this, from the moment she arrived in the national team, Quan Hongchan felt the high standards and strict requirements of the “gold medalist”, and she continued to grow and experience in this atmosphere. Here, only by constantly surpassing ourselves, can we be worthy of the important task. Even during the epidemic, the Chinese diving team maintained systematic training with the support of the powerful motherland. In the absence of training in international competitions, the team organized a number of high-standard and high-level trials. On the one hand, they mobilized the athletes’ enthusiasm for preparation, and on the other hand, they constantly checked for missing vacancies and improved the level of competition. Quan Hongchan’s amazing performance at the Tokyo Olympics is not accidental, but a natural result of the Chinese diving team’s tradition of pursuing excellence and surpassing oneself.
In the face of praise, Quan Hongchan’s message on personal social media revealed the cuteness of the young girl: “My first Olympic trip is over. I am very happy and satisfied. Thank you brothers and sisters for your support, I I will continue to work hard. I will show you more carefully.”
Quan Hongchan once said that her goal is to win the world championship and Olympic champion, and put her picture on the glorious wall of the national team and the provincial team. Now that she has done it, she will have more stage to show herself in the future. Netizens also sent her sincere blessings: “I like to listen to you, especially true and real. The era when the lovely sister belongs to you has begun! Come on, the future belongs to your’post-00s’!”
Our reporter Li Xueying
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