7 gold and 5 silver! This is an outstanding record created by the Chinese diving dream team at the Tokyo Olympics. Since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the Chinese diving team has won 47 gold medals. Diving is still the event in which my country has won the most gold medals in the Olympic Games.
In the diving dream team, it is tradition to lead the new with the old, and the baton of continuous struggle is passed down 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-catchingly. With her stable output of exquisite skills and a "big heart", she successfully continued the glory of Chinese diving and showed it to the world. It reflects the style of China’s “post-00s generation”. In the women's 10-meter platform final, she created a historical highlight moment with perfect scores in three jumps and a total score of 466.20 points. This gold medal helped the Chinese diving team achieve its fourth consecutive championship in this event since the 2008 Beijing Olympics. At the same time, this score is also the best result in the history of the Olympic Games, World Championships and World Cup since FINA implemented the new diving scoring rules in 2006.
In the women's 10-meter platform competition, it is not uncommon for people to become famous at a young age. In the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, 13-year-old Fu Mingxia won the women's 10-meter platform championship. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, three-time Olympian Chen Ruolin became a five-time Olympic gold medalist at the age of 23. Now, 14-year-old Quan Hongchan has taken over the baton from her sisters with a rapid "back wave".
"Quan Hongchan knows the water splash disappearing technique" "The water splash when I make dumplings is bigger than hers"... 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 "Hanglang": "In Quan Hongchan, I see myself from back then, but she is even more powerful than me at that time, with her splashes and The details of the movements are even more perfect and outstanding than mine.” Even Olympic champion Guo Jingjing expressed her envy: “Xiao Quan jumped 3 perfect marks. I am very envious. I have been dancing for 20 years and I have never jumped so many perfect marks. Xiao Quan jumped out in one game."
How do you master such an excellent splash skill? Quan Hongchan's answer was unintentionally "Versailles": "I didn't feel it. It only happened occasionally during training. I didn't expect such good results this time." However, Quan Hongchan also revealed the "secret" of pressing water splash. ——Training day after day.
Talent and hard work have given Quan Hongchan the wings of her dreams and given her the experience of rapid growth. In 2014, she passed the selection of Zhanjiang Sports School and entered the diving team of the sports school to start receiving basic sports training. At the National Championships in October 2020, at the age of 13, she participated in the national competition for the first time and defeated a number of Olympic champions and world champions. She won the championship with a high score of 437.75 points, becoming an out-and-out dark horse. At that time, Zhou Jihong, the leader of the Chinese diving team, said after the game that Quan Hongchan's "emergence" exceeded expectations. She only learned all five moves three weeks before this competition. It was due to her outstanding performance in the first trial that restarted after the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics that Quan Hongchan had the opportunity to qualify for the Olympics.
Quan Hongchan's coach in the Guangdong team, He Weiyi, believes that she is a "talented" player. "Her jumping ability and waist and abdominal ability are outstanding among her peers. Her body shape meets the selection standards for divers. She has a slender figure, beautiful toes and knees, good body flexibility, and stronger control than her peers. Her hand shape is suitable for pressing splashes. She has strong hand skills and can do 10 handstands in a row. In addition, in He Weiyi's opinion, Quan Hongchan is also the most hard-working among the same athletes. "She does two to three hundred jumps every day on land, and also on water." It takes about 120 jumps."
Quan Hongchan's first coach Chen Huaming has the same feeling: "Quan Hongchan has shown talent since she was a child. She has a very bright personality, she is also very smart and understanding. She is very capable and is particularly suitable for diving. Quan Hongchan never complains about being tired during training. She can handle the maximum amount of exercise here." Chen Huaming said frankly that Quan Hongchan's "splash disappearing technique" is hand-shaped. Innate advantages, but more of them come from hard training.
Quan Hongchan’s growth process is not without its ups and downs. She was in the limelight at the time. In the second Olympic trials in January this year, she made a mistake on the 207C and only ranked 5th. In the post-game interview, Quan Hongchan said that she actually performed quite well in this movement during training, but when she was excited during the game, she just overdid it when she wanted to exert her strength. In order to practice this action well, Quan Hongchan has to practice more in training every day. She laughed and said: "I dance every day when I go back, sometimes even 10 jumps, which makes me tired." God rewards hard work. The National Diving Championship to be held in May 2021 is the third stop of the Olympic selection. Quan Hongchan regrouped and jumped out. Scored a super high score of 440.85 points and won the championship again. Not only did she perform well on her best 407C, she received 10 points from 4 judges and received a game-high score of 94.40. She also scored a good score of 94.05 on 207C, which she made a mistake in the previous race.
The Chinese diving team is a veritable "dream team." The success of the Chinese diving team not only embodies the wisdom of several generations of Chinese divers, but also pours the youth of strivers. It is also a manifestation of the growing strength of China's sports and country.
During the Tokyo Olympics cycle, the Chinese diving team has improved the four-level training network, established a comprehensive training system, and improved the quality of training; it has attached great importance to the research of difficult new technologies and the innovation of training methods; it has established a scientific and institutionalized competition system and strives to improve the success rate. Just like this, from the moment she joined the national team, Quan Hongchan felt the high standards and strict requirements of the "Gold Medal Teacher", and she continued to experience and grow in such an atmosphere. Here, only by constantly surpassing ourselves can we be worthy of our important responsibilities. Even during the epidemic, the Chinese diving team still maintained systematic training with the support of the powerful motherland. In the absence of international competition training, the team organized multiple high-standard and high-level trials. On the one hand, it mobilized the enthusiasm of athletes to prepare for competition, and on the other hand, it continuously checked for omissions and filled gaps to improve the competitive level. Quan Hongchan's stunning performance at the Tokyo Olympics was no accident, but the natural result of the Chinese diving team's tradition of pursuing excellence and transcending themselves.
Faced with the overwhelming praise, Quan Hongchan’s message on her personal social media revealed the cuteness of a young girl: “My first Olympic journey is over, I am very happy and satisfied. Thank you. Dear brothers and sisters, I will continue to work hard.”
Quan Hongchan once said that her goal is to win the world championship and the Olympic championship, and have her photo on the national stage. On the wall of glory of the national team and the provincial team, now that she has done it, she will have more stages to show herself in the future.
Netizens also sent her sincere blessings: "I like to listen to what you say, it is very real and real. The era of your lovely sister has begun! Come on, the future belongs to you 'post-00s'!"