In the early morning of August 2, Beijing time, Chinese athlete Zhang Yufei won the bronze medal in the women's 200-meter butterfly final of the Paris Olympic Games in 2:05.09. Although he failed to defend his title, you must know that Zhang Yufei achieved this result despite her

In the early morning of August 2, Beijing time, Chinese swimmer Zhang Yufei won the bronze medal in the women's 200-meter butterfly final of the Paris Olympic Games in 2:05.09. Although he failed to defend his title, you must know that Zhang Yufei achieved this result despite her feverish body, and her true character as a "model worker" was fully demonstrated.

This is Zhang Yufei’s third Olympic Games. In Rio 8 years ago, Zhang Yufei, who made her debut in the Olympics, originally had the idea of ​​​​"Nezha making waves" in vain. At that time, in the women's 200-meter butterfly final, Zhang Yufei's body was so tense that she was stiff, from head to toe, from the entry to the end of the game. In that competition, Zhang Yufei only ranked sixth. The first Olympic experience was not a success, and even a bit frustrating, so much so that Zhang Yufei said that she did not want to watch the replay of that game again for a long time.

After the trip to Rio, Zhang Yufei's swimming career also fell into a trough. "For a time, I didn't want to step into the swimming pool or get into the water." This was a true portrayal of her inner emotions at the time. The next year, Zhang Yufei changed coaches, and she came to coach Cui Dengrong . In hindsight, such a change was a very important turning point in Zhang Yufei's sports career, even if the initial run-in between master and apprentice was not smooth.

At the Hangzhou Asian Games, coaches Zhang Yufei and Cui Dengrong showed off the gold medals they won that year.

In the words of some people in the swimming industry, Cui Dengrong’s training ideas at the time were somewhat “unconventional”—Zhang Yufei stimulated the 200-meter butterfly swimming ability with the speed of the 100-meter butterfly. , while developing the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle compulsory courses for butterfly swimmers, and then steadily developing the 200-meter butterfly until the new technology is consolidated. At the same time, Cui Dengrong also improved Zhang Yufei's physical fitness.

"Because he is the coach, I didn't understand it at first, but I would do it. Later I gradually understood why he asked me to do it." Zhang Yufei once recalled, "Director Cui is a person who cares about details. His requirements for training details are very high. I felt like I was almost out of breath during training. I thought to myself, how can a coach care about details like this? Will I be choked to death one day? "

But according to the According to Zhang Yufei, she felt that she was still too young at the time and was simply "breaking the pot" and was like a "walking zombie" on the training field. What she didn't expect was that after several months of implementing the new training plan, one day she suddenly discovered that her 200-meter butterfly swimming score had ranked first in the world.

"I thought it was unbelievable at the time. Did I achieve this result by swimming?" Zhang Yufei said. Until a subsequent test, Zhang Yufei's results were still among the best in the world. And this also strengthened the master and apprentice's confidence in the Tokyo Olympics.

In the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Zhang Yufei won an outstanding record of 2 gold medals and 2 silver medals. Among them, she won the gold medal in 2:03.86 in the 200-meter butterfly and broke the Olympic record. In the 100-meter butterfly, she won the silver medal in 55.64 seconds, losing only 0.05 seconds to champion McNeil. Zhang Yufei also continued the glorious tradition of the Chinese swimming team in this event. After all, Liu Zige at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Jiao Liuyang at the 2012 London Olympics were both Olympic gold medalists in this event.

In fact, Zhang Yufei was able to stand on the podium in the 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly events at the same Olympic Games. This is something that most athletes cannot do. The specific reason is that the two events The training concepts and methods, techniques and physical distribution are all very different, and the requirements for athletes are very high. It is difficult for ordinary people to take into account these two distances at the same time. Of course, swimming legend Phelps is a special case, and Zhang Yufei has also done the same.

Entering the Paris Olympic cycle, Zhang Yufei continues to maintain her desire for the championship, but at the same time she has also experienced many changes - the biggest change is her mentality. "The training before the Tokyo Olympics was more like me being pushed. But now it's more like I want to see how much potential I have, try whether I can win the Olympic championship again, and explore where my limits are." ."she says.

At the end of 2021, men's breaststroker Qin Haiyang also entered Cui Dengrong's training group, which stimulated Zhang Yufei's fighting spirit to a certain extent. In the past, Zhang Yufei always liked to find reasons to be "lazy" in training, but now she doesn't do this at all. Instead, she often "matches" Tan Haiyang's training.

"When I train with Qin Haiyang, he can really motivate me." Zhang Yufei said, "He works very hard, and I can't lose. I have to work harder than him."

Once, coach Cui Dengrong sent a friend Circle, the general content is: There is no one in the swimming pool, but Qin Haiyang is still swimming in one lane, and Zhang Yufei is in three lanes. The implication is that Qin Haiyang and Zhang Yufei are the athletes who have practiced the most. It can be seen that the outstanding results of the two people are the result of more efforts behind the scenes.

Foreign fitness coach of the Chinese swimming team James once gave an example to a Beijing Youth Daily reporter: A few years ago, he took several young male athletes to practice strength, and he asked these players to carry 20 kilograms of barbell plates for induction. Body upward. Some players said: Coach, this is too difficult, I can’t do it. At this time, Zhang Yufei came over and asked James: Am I going to train to gain weight? After receiving a negative reply, Zhang Yufei said: Well, I hope to practice such a weight in the future warm-up. After the male athletes heard this, their jaws almost dropped to the ground in surprise.

Zhang Yufei pushed her performance to one peak after another in 2023: she participated in 59 competitions in the international arena throughout the year, winning 23 gold medals, 4 silver medals, and 2 bronze medals. Among them, Zhang Yufei competed in 6 events at last year's World Championships, winning 2 golds, 1 silver and 2 bronze. In order to compete with her teammates for the men's and women's 4x100-meter medley relay championship, Zhang Yufei gave up her main event, the 200-meter butterfly, and finally won this historic gold medal for the Chinese swimming team. Then came the Chengdu Universiade. Zhang Yufei had up to four games a day, but she still won all 9 events she participated in, becoming the athlete with the most gold medals at the games. At the next Asian Games in Hangzhou, Zhang Yufei continued to maintain excellent competitive status despite being ill. She "harvested" 6 gold medals by herself and broke the competition record many times. Not only that, she also won the Hangzhou Asian Games Most Valuable Athlete Award together with her teammate Qin Haiyang. She continued non-stop, winning consecutive World Cup titles in Berlin, Athens and Budapest.

In April this year, Zhang Yufei was awarded the "Moving China Person of the Year 2023". In an interview with the host Bai Yansong, when asked about the goal she hoped to achieve, she replied firmly: "Be the butterfly queen of the world."

Text/Beijing Youth Daily Paris Special Correspondent Song Xiang

Editor/Wang Fan