When she first met Zhang Yufei, she mentioned this number - 10. She said that 10 is a perfect score, the pinnacle of the sports world, and her entire sports career is a process of constantly approaching, reaching, and falling back to 10, and then getting closer again. That was a

When she first met Zhang Yufei , she mentioned this number - 10.

She said that 10 is a perfect score, the pinnacle of the sports world, and her entire sports career is a process of constantly approaching, reaching, and falling back to 10, and then getting closer again.

That was a very pleasant exchange. We talked about her career, peaks and valleys, joy and despair. She talked about many of her experiences. The most precious thing is that this young man told the truth. She showed her inner world almost without reservation. , her pain, confusion, contradiction and withdrawal.

This is an honest Olympic champion and her true Olympic story - in the world of competition, she briefly reached "10", but life is always greater than the arena. In the coordinate system of life, this is also a 26 The unremitting exploration and journey of young people aged 0 to 10.

text | Li Feiran

editor | Zhang Yue

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At the Tokyo Olympics, Zhang Yufei won 4 medals, two gold and two silver. In the Olympic Village at that time, athletes often heard this joke, saying that so and so won the gold medal. , sleep under the pillow. Zhang Yufei is not such a person. She only touched the four medals while listening to the national anthem on the podium. She put them aside after getting off the podium. After returning to China, she took them home and gave them to her mother.

Since I am not obsessed with medals and practice hard in the swimming pool every day, is it because I love swimming? When talking about this point, Zhang Yufei glanced at her agent, hesitated, and then looked back at me, "Can I talk about this? I don't like swimming."

When Zhang Yufei said this, There are still 83 days until the opening of the Paris Olympics. The next day, she will go to Shanghai with the national swimming team for the final closed training before the Olympics. From Tokyo to Paris, from the age of 23 to 26, she trained and competed day after day, but she was still very sure: I don't like swimming.

Almost everyone around him knows that Zhang Yufei doesn't like swimming. She told the coach, the team doctor, and her mother. During our communication, she counted her fingers and counted her "three major reluctances in life" again, "I don't like swimming - I have to swim; I don't like butterfly swimming - I want to swim butterfly stroke; I I don’t like the 200 butterfly (note: 200 meter butterfly) – I still have to swim the 200 butterfly.”

Zhang Yufei started swimming at the age of three. Her description of this starting point is, "My parents threw me into the water together." Zhang Yufei's parents are both swimming coaches. When she was a child, she went to work with her mother Zhang Min. When her mother taught children to swim in the water, she would play beside her. At least at that time, the mother felt that her daughter was a person who loved water. She noticed that her daughter would imitate the movements and play in the water by herself. At that time, little Zhang Yufei often swam to the deep water alone, and others anxiously called Zhang Min. When I went to see her, only my mother was the calmest. She knew clearly that Zhang Yufei’s water ability was fine. “She was like a little fish, not afraid at all. She was making friends with the water.”

Zhang Yufei can no longer remember when swimming became annoying. Her father died unexpectedly when she was four years old, and her mother was the only one who swam with her. After entering elementary school, other classmates could go home after school every day, but she had to go to the swimming pool alone to continue training. Swimming became lonely, and I could only go back and forth in circles. Others praise her for her good water skills, but her biggest feeling in the water is resistance. There is always a force that restrains her in the water. She cannot be free, go home, or see the people she wants to see.

My mother still remembers Zhang Yufei when she first learned to swim. When she was in elementary school, she was sent to take professional swimming lessons. Zhang Yufei didn't want to go, so her mother ran to pick her up at school. Her daughter said she had a stomachache and couldn't swim anymore. She checked again on the way to the hospital to see if it really hurt. Zhang Yufei insisted, it really hurt. It wasn't until she was about to go to the hospital for an injection that she told the truth. Her stomach didn't really hurt, but she really didn't want to go swimming.

Zhang Yufei said that she never felt that she could become one with water. "It is impossible to merge together." Others said it was like a fish in the water. She shuddered when she heard this metaphor.Sometimes I record an interview video with my teammates. My teammates say that swimming is my life and that I am willing to persist because I love swimming. She stood by and listened with envy, "They really like swimming, but I really like swimming." I don’t like it!”

’s mother Zhang Min told me that Zhang Yufei started professional training at the age of 6. During the six years of elementary school, she almost never spent winter or summer vacations. She was in the swimming pool almost every day, 365 days a year. There was no Spring Festival or Children’s Day. I have never gone to the park with my mother, nor have I watched a movie together as a family. She felt sorry for her daughter and had thought about letting her child leave professional sports and have a young life like other children. But at that time, the coach hesitated. He said, you can watch her play.

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When we talk about talent, Zhang Yufei will rush to answer, "My number one talent is that I am not easy to get injured. Because the first hit for an athlete is definitely injury. If you stop all training after an injury, it must be No, I am not easily injured. I can practice for a long time. Even if I encounter some minor injuries or illnesses, I may recover in two or three days."

My mother Zhang Min also understands this very well.

When she was 12 years old, Zhang Yufei participated in the 17th Provincial Games of Jiangsu Province. Before the competition, she had been training in a closed camp, and her family could only visit her once a month. Zhang Min still remembers that when she saw her daughter coming out, she was very thin and small. As soon as they met, she complained aggrievedly: "Mom, why don't I get sick?"

"That moment is still fresh in my memory. The child suffered a lot and it was so distressing. I asked her, why do you want to get sick? She said, look at our group, there are more than a dozen children. I had a fever, illness, and diarrhea, but my parents took me home. I wasn’t sick, and I wasn’t injured. I just couldn’t go home. I kept asking myself, why am I not sick? I really want to go home!" Zhang Min said.

14 years later, Zhang Min still couldn't help crying when talking about this incident. She always felt that her daughter was not that close to her when she was a child. "Maybe it was because I was so strict with her. She always felt that her mother didn't love me. She only valued academic performance and training results and was always forcing me." But the fact is that the coach asked Zhang Min to watch her daughter's competition - Zhang Yufei directly won the championship in two events for the first time she participated in the competition. As a swimming coach, Zhang Min can see the talent in her daughter. She herself has experienced professional swimming, and she clearly knows that it will be very hard to persist. Precisely because she understands swimming, she knows better that it is also cruel to give up one's talent before one's eyes.

As for Zhang Yufei’s talent? Her current assistant coach Huang Guangyu can speak with sports data -

One of the key indicators to measure a person's athletic ability is heart rate recovery (hrr), which refers to a person's return to nature after high heart rate exercise. Heart rate capabilities. Taking the maximum heart rate of 180bpm as the standard, it takes about one minute on average for Zhang Yufei to return to normal heart rate, which is more than three times faster than ordinary people. This means that Zhang Yufei can recover more quickly after high-intensity exercise. The world's top cardiopulmonary function is a godsend. Swimming talent.

Another talent of Zhang Yufei is physical fitness. She can do pull-ups with a maximum weight of 60 kilograms with assistance. Her muscles have a strong ability to withstand lactic acid. In the final sprint stage of the competition, everyone persisted in a state of extreme fatigue. The lactic acid hit the whole body and the whole body was unable to exert strength. People's movements would be deformed and their willpower would be easily lost. , relax involuntarily, this is human instinct. The more acid-resistant a person is, the more able he is to concentrate in difficult situations and keep his movements unchanged, and the easier it is to succeed. Zhang Yufei has exactly this trait - she is also doing physical training, and the team members around her are exhausted, and she still Someone who can laugh and laugh next to me.

In competitive sports, talent is the foundation, the threshold, and the "1" before countless possibilities in the future. Faced with her daughter's talent, Zhang Min made a determination. She would resolutely refuse when her daughter begged to quit. "She must stick to one thing to the end."

At the Provincial Games when she was 12 years old, Zhang Yufei signed up for six swimming events by herself and won two gold medals, three silver medals, and one bronze medal. This allowed her to directly enter the Jiangsu Provincial Team and became the youngest athlete on the provincial team. . Later, with her outstanding results, Zhang Yufei quickly entered the national team. At that time, she was 15 years old.

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In the national team, 15-year-old Zhang Yufei is a little girl who only knows how to swim forward. Her results came quickly. The following year, she achieved good results in the Youth Olympic Games and the Incheon Asian Games. Another year later, in the 2015 World Swimming Championships, 17-year-old Zhang Yufei won the third place in the women's 200-meter butterfly. Set a world youth record. The next story of

was originally planned to develop like this: the talented girl competed in the Olympics for the first time at the age of 18. She was regarded as the successor of Chinese women's butterfly swimming and would stand out at the Rio Olympics and stand on the podium.

The reality is that in the Rio Olympics women's 200-meter butterfly final, Zhang Yufei only finished sixth. The video of that day's game was stored in her mobile phone, and she didn't dare to open it for several months. She would cry even just thinking about that day. The Olympics were scarier and more cruel than she imagined. It doesn't mean you can win if you have talent and strength. After

came back from Rio, she was still declining. Her competition results were up and down, and her days of decline lasted for a long time. Finally, at the end of 2017, the team of coach Cui Dengrong and accepted her.

Cui Dengrong, a native of Shanghai, was born in 1969. He was also a professional swimmer in his early years and started working as a coach after retiring. When he first returned to Shanghai to work as a youth coach at an amateur sports school, he had 40 students, only 2 swimming lanes, and only one and a half hours of training every day. The limitations of objective conditions forced him to start thinking about improving water techniques, hoping to use them more efficiently. ways to improve athlete performance.

Regarding Cui Dengrong, everyone who is familiar with him told me that this is a person who thinks about swimming every day. He will chat with anyone about his skills when he catches him. When he goes abroad, he chats with foreign coaches, and when he is training abroad, he will secretly observe how other countries do it. Training plan, even when he saw a monkey climbing a tree, he was thinking about swimming. "Monkeys usually climb trees very slowly and stretch out very long, but when they really run... they move in a continuous manner." He learned from this The inspiration for swimming is rhythm. "The same is true for butterfly swimming. It does not mean that the longer the range of motion, the better. You must find an optimal force point and frequency of motion." His most important training philosophy is: effective training. In an interview with "Swimming" magazine, Cui Dengrong introduced "effective training" this way: "Accurate control of speed and intensity can be called effective training." When

first cooperated, Cui Dengrong judged that Zhang Yufei was extremely capable, but not technically proficient. , he has a definition for her - it is basically a Need for Speed ​​car equipped with a supercar machine, but its appearance looks like a pile of junk. He set rules for Zhang Yufei and spent three years polishing himself. In the first year, he improved his skills, in the second year, he practiced his abilities, and in the third year, he worked on the details, and then he prepared for the Tokyo Olympics. Before

decided to accept Zhang Yufei, the most famous athlete Cui Dengrong trained was Lu Ying. Her best result was the runner-up in the women's 100-meter butterfly at the London Olympics and the relay champion at the World Swimming Championships. Because he has never brought out an Olympic champion, people around him are not completely convinced of Cui Dengrong's training methods, and even Zhang Yufei is a little skeptical. "When I first met him, he was still a very handsome coach, but the first difference between him and what I imagined was that he was really verbose. At first I thought this person was a mother-in-law? Because of competitive sports When it comes to sports, I can just work hard, rush, and be done with it. Why do you have to tell me so many details?" Zhang Yufei said.

In her description, they are two different people. Zhang Yufei is carefree, while Cui Dengrong is long-winded. When they first started training, the two stubborn tempers often quarreled. Zhang Yufei felt that her coach was weird. Cui Dengrong insisted that there was something wrong with Zhang Yufei's technical details, and asked Zhang Yufei to change her technique, train her to forget her past muscle memory, and relearn starting, turning, reaching the edge, and exiting the water. Even her hand shape had to be changed.Zhang Yufei, who was in the technical stage, competed for the first time, and her performance dropped by 5 seconds. Cui Dengrong didn't panic and kept saying, "All good things take a long time."

Zhang Yufei admitted that at the beginning, she did not understand many of Cui Dengrong's ideas and could only follow them. But "after doing it for a while, I found that it was indeed effective." She set a new personal best score and was very happy after the competition. Although he was happy, Cui Dengrong had a dark face all the way. Zhang Yufei was not convinced. She obviously swam with good results, but Cui Dengrong felt that winning the championship was just luck, and the details still could not withstand scrutiny.

"I used to think that competitive sports were all about body and strength. He taught me that competitive sports, especially swimming, are not just about brute force. There are some things you can do with wisdom, technology, and details. "It saves a lot of effort." Zhang Yufei said: "It turns out there is a second way to choose."

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When he first started working with Zhang Yufei, Cui Dengrong often sighed: "You are just like my daughter." As the cooperation progresses, With the deepening of the relationship, trust was gradually established, and Zhang Yufei began to call Cui Dengrong "Dad" - a traditional sports team never lacks strict coaches. Sometimes the severity is too much, and the relationship between the coach and the athletes will become increasingly tense, especially We have come to an era where individuality is more advocated and athletes are more assertive. Absolute obedience in the traditional master-apprentice relationship is becoming increasingly rare. Trust between two independent individuals is no longer a matter of course. This requires longer time and A deeper understanding.

At the 2019 Gwangju Swimming World Championships, it was less than a year before the start of the Tokyo Olympics, but Zhang Yufei was still unable to enter the state. In the 200-meter butterfly race, her time was nearly 8 seconds slower than when she was in good form. After the game, when walking out of the swimming pool to go to the locker room, the athletes had to pass through a long open-air passage. It was raining that day. Zhang Yufei did not bring slippers, so she could only walk there barefoot. As she walked, she looked up and saw Cui Dengrong walking towards her— —

Athletes who have just experienced a disastrous game ask: Why are you here? Coach

answered: I will accompany you.

This is Cui Dengrong's promise to Zhang Yufei: "No matter whether you compete well or badly, I will wait for you at the exit of the game." So, in a huge system that runs day and night with the ultimate goal of gold medals, two people who have not yet The people who proved themselves did not express much when faced with a dismal result they had just swum. They just walked through the long passage together in the rain.

Zhang Yufei admitted that for a long time while preparing for the Tokyo Olympics, one of her motivations was to win an Olympic gold medal to defend her father.

After the Gwangju World Championships, Cui Dengrong changed Zhang Yufei's training plan. She temporarily gave up the 200-meter butterfly, which was extremely painful for her, and switched to 100-meter butterfly. At the same time, she increased her muscle strength training on land. The training intensity was once in line with the team's. Male players were even. At the beginning of 2020, the epidemic broke out. Soon after, it was announced that the Tokyo Olympics would be postponed for one year. Zhang Yufei got more preparation time - at the Olympic qualifying meet in September 2020, Zhang Yufei broke the Asian record for the women's 100-meter butterfly. A few months later, Zhang Yufei once again picked up the 200-meter butterfly that she had not practiced for more than a year. , a surprise appeared-she set a personal best in the women's 200-meter butterfly competition in the domestic trials of the Tokyo Olympics.

In the past, Cui Dengrong often said to Zhang Yufei: "You can win the Olympic championship." Zhang Yufei didn't believe it and didn't dare to think about it, but as the Tokyo Olympics got closer and closer, this sentence no longer seemed to be an encouragement and comfort. It may become a reality - at that time, Zhang Yufei's 100-meter butterfly and 200-meter butterfly scores ranked first in the world in 2021.

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Among the four swimming strokes, butterfly stroke is recognized as the swimming stroke that tests people's willpower the most.In butterfly swimming, the body swings in a wave-like manner, and both arms need to be stroked backwards through the water surface at the same time. However, paddling backwards will shift the center of gravity backward and increase the burden on the legs. This action characteristic determines that during an action cycle The loss of buoyancy and balance in butterfly stroke is much greater than that of other swimming styles. Therefore, butterfly swimmers will be in the most pain when they are fatigued, and the 200-meter butterfly stroke is pain in pain.

But after giving up the 200-meter butterfly for more than 400 days, Zhang Yufei started again and gained a special feeling. The pain of the past became thinner, and she once felt as if she was "flying" on the water.

She described that butterfly swimming is like a plane taking off, always moving forward and always going up, especially before the finish line. In front of you is a brighter and clearer world, and the self in the water bursts out. The most extreme power of human beings, a person briefly experiences the feeling of flying, rising step by step towards the destination that is about to be reached.

Zhang Yufei said that she likes the last 15 meters of butterfly swimming the most - it is also the most difficult moment for countless butterfly swimmers, but her increased ability and high acid resistance give her a completely different feeling: "Swimming to the end of butterfly swimming When you look up, you can actually look up and see the shore. Every time you look up, you will feel that you are one step closer to the edge of the pool. It is really like you can see it with your eyes open. I have it at my fingertips. I am about to get it. We're here." She said that she was indeed very tired during the swim, but the feeling in the last 15 meters was "the feeling of seeing hope and grasping hope."

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The story about Tokyo that everyone knows is this -

In the women's 100-meter butterfly, Zhang Yufei won the runner-up, 0.05 seconds behind the champion; in the women's 200-meter butterfly, Zhang Yufei won the championship without any suspense, breaking the Olympic record After swimming the 200-meter butterfly for 80 minutes, she swam the women's 4x200-meter freestyle relay with her teammates, breaking the world record and winning the championship; the men's and women's mixed 4x100-meter relay won another silver medal. She became the Chinese athlete with the most medals at the Tokyo Olympics.

Zhang Yufei described her trip to Tokyo as: Nezha is in the sea. She swam 12 games and was on countless hot searches. She still remembers her childhood opponent: Japanese player Rikako Chie. They are a group of athletes. When they first participated in the competition, Chijiang Rikako was a genius girl and could win 6 gold medals in one Asian Games. But later, Chijiang suffered from leukemia and experienced painful treatment and recovery. In Tokyo 2021 In the Olympics, Chi Jiang finally made his comeback. At this time, Zhang Yufei has become the most dazzling star in the swimming arena, but she always thinks about Chi Jiang and specially waits for her on the sidelines, hugs her and encourages her - the Tokyo Olympics is the first time many people know Zhang Yufei. After the swimming competition, everyone knew about Zhang Yufei, knowing that she was confident, talkative, and always had a sunny smile.

But another version of this story is -

The opening time of the Tokyo Olympics is July 23, 2021. Just more than a month before the opening, on June 15, 2021, during the women's 100-meter butterfly competition at the U.S. Olympic Trials , American athlete Torri Huske swam the third best time in history of 55.66 seconds, surpassing Zhang Yufei's best time in 2021. The news of

spread to China. Zhang Yufei, who was preparing for the competition, had insomnia until 4 a.m. that night and did not go to training the next day. I went to talk to Cui Dengrong in the evening. She cried and told about her collapse. Before that, Zhang Yufei also told Cui Dengrong that she was still afraid of 200 butterflies. When it came to the competition, she would say, "I'm afraid, what should I do?"

"I found that I am not suitable to be an athlete at all." Zhang Yufei often said to those around her People say this. Her theory is, "When I say I am not suitable to be an athlete, it is not because my physical fitness is not suitable. My physical skills are very good. What I mean is that I am not suitable mentally to be an athlete, because every time before I take the field, I I will hesitate for a moment, I will retreat for a moment, and I will doubt myself, but I think athletes should not doubt themselves. She should be forward-looking, confident, sunny, full of fighting spirit and hope, and should not be. like me."

Even in Tokyo, after swimming 150 meters in the 200-meter butterfly, she gradually became convinced that she could really win the championship. After swimming her favorite last 15 meters, she left the swimming pool. She indeed became the Zhang Yufei who was indomitable, confident, sunny, full of fighting spirit and hope. But at least before jumping into the swimming pool, she was still the same person who didn't like swimming. Zhang Yufei believes that she is "not suitable to be an athlete" and feels both longing and fear in her heart.

returned from Tokyo with four more medals in her suitcase, but this did not seem to make her completely at ease. What was more important seemed to be the book "Murphy's Law" - initially, Cui Dengrong was talking about butterfly swimming with Zhang Yufei. Zhang Yufei didn't understand Murphy's Law, so she bought a copy of "Murphy's Law". Halfway through the book, she found that she did well in competitions when she took this book with her, so she used the book as a talisman and kept it at the bottom of her bag every day. , put it on the bedside.

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After returning from Tokyo, Zhang Yufei briefly liked swimming. For a period of time after winning the championship, she was in good condition and was surrounded by praises. The most common sentence she heard was "She deserves to be an Olympic champion." That period was when she was most confident, "I felt like, wow, I am just a float in the water, and that is me."

But this feeling of happiness only lasted a few months. , "After winning the championship, the mentality was going downhill. At that time, I couldn't explain how I felt about swimming." She made a grabbing gesture with her fingers, "I just wanted to scratch it, I really wanted to. Scratch it."

Huang Guangyu is the assistant coach in charge of her. He has been following coach Cui Dengrong to help Zhang Yufei train since before the Tokyo Olympics. He could clearly see that Zhang Yufei had encountered her own dilemma after Tokyo. Her body movement in the water had deteriorated, her speed had slowed down visibly, and she seemed to have no energy. He watched her come to train every day, and she would also go into the water. , but just completing the task, "just like when we go to work and fish, we leave as soon as we get off work."

At that time, Zhang Yufei was beside the swimming pool every day asking: Should I swim or not? When she was a child, she swam because of her mother, but her mother no longer forced her to swim. During the last Olympic cycle, Cui Dengrong kept an eye on her and she practiced hard with the coach. But after the Tokyo Olympics, Cui Dengrong stopped urging her and gave her back to her. I set a new rule. In the last cycle, I taught you how to practice. You didn’t win the Olympic championship. If you want to win the championship, you have to listen to me. In this cycle, I listen to you. You have already won the Olympic championship. Whatever you want, we will cooperate with you.

The sudden freedom brought her confusion, a feeling of weightlessness like falling from a high place. Zhang Yufei used four words to describe her 2022 - "crazy, hopeless, helpless, and don't want to get into the water."

"2022 is the year when I least want to go into the water. I always tell the coach that I don't want to go into the water today because I am in a bad mood today. The coach also understood that year and said that if you don't want to go into the water, you can't go into the water." Zhang Yufei explain. Zhang Yufei thought a lot during that time. She asked many people, what is the future? She asked this question to her coach, her mother, and even when chatting with the on-site staff during the filming of the commercial, she would seriously tell them, "Swimming has helped me a lot, but you have to really ask me if you want to practice Swimming? I don’t want to practice at all. Maybe I won’t even go into the water again after I retire.”

After becoming an Olympic champion, she has another identity besides an athlete—a sports star. She has an agent and has to face more business cooperation, which means she also needs to adapt to a new schedule. In the past, her schedule only included training and competition. Now her schedule has added new elements: filming, interviews, and participation in public events.

Wang Yixuan is her agent. When he first started working with her, he thought she was "still like a child". She had been training in sports before and was not familiar with the world outside the swimming pool. She did not know how to read the shooting plan in advance and attend the meeting. I mispronounced the name of the guest during the event. When I first went on the interview, I brought clothes that were not photogenic. This also made Zhang Yufei live a chaotic life for a period of time - unhappy swimming in the water and uncomfortable in front of the camera.When

was shooting for the magazine, the photographer prepared a tight dress with spaghetti straps. Butterfly swimming is a sport that uses arms for a long time. The shoulders and arms will have strong muscles. Zhang Yufei feels that she looks particularly strong this way. She told her agent Wang Yixuan that there are two types of clothes I hate the most, one is suspender skirts and the other is tight skirts. The two girls had aesthetic deviations when choosing photos. Zhang Yufei said that he was so strong and ugly. Wang Yixuan said, don’t you think you are beautiful? How powerful, how beautiful this is!

"Her strength is obviously a kind of beauty. She is so strong and powerful, but she feels that her muscular lines that can win the world championship are not beautiful." Wang Yixuan said that despite the halo of Olympic champion, she Seeing the discomfort and low self-esteem of a young person who has just stepped out of the swimming pool, she needs a lot of affirmation from the outside world, affirmation that her muscles are beautiful, and that she is a great girl.

In those moments when you have to show the sunshine and confidence of an Olympic champion, it is difficult to tell whether that title is a halo or a liability. Zhang Yufei suffers from severe menstrual cramps. If there is a competition, she cannot take medicine casually. Most of the time, she has to carry it by herself. In one competition, Wang Yixuan watched her win the championship a few minutes ago and was smiling and waving outside. But when she came back, she could only be carried into the shower room. She couldn't stand. Wang Yixuan and team doctor Fang Fang could only lay yoga mats in the shower room. He put the mat on the mat and kept pouring hot water over her body. "She lay on the mat as if she had fainted. Her whole body was completely white. It took a while before she regained her composure." Then, "she went out to be interviewed again. It’s sunny.” What will

experience after becoming an Olympic champion? What Zhang Yufei experienced is also what many Chinese athletes have to face: you will lose goals and motivation, become afraid of losing, and suddenly become a public figure. You need to complete socialization in the shortest time and meet the expectations of the public—— But not long ago, you were an athlete who lived in a sports team all year round, trained every day when you opened your eyes, had little contact with the outside world, and lived a very simple life. That Olympic gold medal seems to be a "10", but in fact, it is just an important midfield moment on the way to "10", a watershed in life. What comes next is more important. Another half.

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Huang Guangyu said that in the coaching staff, he often heard Cui Dengrong say, "To cultivate an excellent athlete, you must first cultivate them to become an excellent person." This means not only teaching them training, but also helping them become To become richer and fuller people, teach them how to accept doubts, how to face negative voices, and how to face themselves. After working with

for several months, agent Wang Yixuan made a long phone call to Zhang Yufei. The topic was - how we should cooperate better.

When training for a sports team, everything revolves around the athletes. This kind of life rhythm is very simple. She will practice whatever the coach wants. As long as she can achieve results, she will go all out. As long as the training is completed, she does not need to worry about other things. This was Zhang Yufei’s survival logic before becoming an Olympic champion. But becoming a sports star means more media exposure, social activities, and brand cooperation. Wang Yixuan found that Zhang Yufei has not been able to adapt to this new identity.

During that phone call, Wang Yixuan told Zhang Yufei that it was time to make adjustments and changes for a new living situation. From now on, she needs to step out of her past world and see more people. For example, she needs to understand what the photographer needs at the shooting scene, understand what the other party needs in advance during the conversation, and understand the brand's needs when participating in brand activities. What. In her new identity, Zhang Yufei must learn to survive in cooperation between people, which means that she must understand what the common goal is when everyone comes together to do things, and she must also make her own efforts for the common goal. By the

pool, new cooperation is also gathering.

In August 2022, the national swimming team regrouped and Cui Dengrong formed a new team.When preparing for Tokyo, his team only had assistant coaches, physical coaches and team doctors. When it was time to prepare for Paris, the national team helped them deploy psychological teachers and a scientific research team to guide training from a more detailed scientific perspective and synchronize with the world in real time. The most cutting-edge relevant research and papers, shooting training technology videos, statistics of biochemical indicators, and data analysis. In this brand new team, almost everyone has a love that Zhang Yufei cannot understand. None of them can or can no longer engage in professional sports. Age does not allow, physical fitness does not allow, and talent does not allow, but Zhang Yufei can still do it. In the new team of

, there is also an old friend of Zhang Yufei - the synchronized swimmer Kuili. Kuili is five years older than Zhang Yufei. They trained together when they were children in the provincial team. Zhang Yufei practiced swimming, and Kuili practiced synchronized swimming in a swimming pool not far away. They ate together, practiced strength training together, and often bumped into each other on the way to class. Kuili has always been a main member of the Chinese synchronized swimming team. As an athlete, she participated in two Olympic Games and won two Olympic silver medals. The first was the silver medal in the synchronized swimming team event with the team members at the Rio Olympics. The second At the Tokyo Olympics five years later, they once again won the silver medal in the team event. After Tokyo, the 28-year-old Kuili retired.

invited Li Li to join the team. Cui Dengrong’s intention was to improve Zhang Yufei’s shoulder joint toughness. He had studied everyone’s butterfly strokes, especially Phelps’s. Cui Dengrong discovered that when Phelps swam butterfly, his shoulders turned backward. Presenting an obvious S-shape, he is exerting force through the flexibility and flexibility of his joints, which inspired Cui Dengrong a lot. In the new team, Li Li is responsible for Zhang Yufei's physical training. One of the important tasks is to help her warm up before training every day, especially to enhance her body's coordination and flexibility.

"I am also an athlete, and I know how scary it is to wake up and face a lot of (training) plans throughout the day," Kuili said. What she wants to do is to make Zhang Yufei and her teammates feel happy. To face painful training.

When Zhang Yufei shouted "I don't want to swim", Huang Guangyu made a video for her, and Zhang Yufei cried when she saw it. "Even if you don't become the champion, we will always be with you." Huang Guangyu said, "Actually, I just want to tell her that those of us who are willing to be here and willing to pay for you are actually not doing it for anything. Fame and fortune, but because we want to grow up with you"

and mother.

When Zhang Min saw the pressure and difficulties that the Olympic champion brought to her daughter, she would also call her to talk to her, "You have to know that you can't always stand on the top of a high mountain. It will be very tiring, just like This Olympic champion will also bring a great halo to me. Every time I go out, everyone will say that this is the mother of an Olympic champion. I am very happy. I will follow my daughter to get the glory, but this kind of life still has some pressure. If you always want to appear perfect, you won’t be so happy. From a mother’s point of view, I always think that my daughter is happy.”

The most important thing is Zhang Yufei herself. Although she was in poor condition and suffered from deep self-doubt, she was still able to win the championship in domestic competitions. Due to the epidemic, she was not able to prepare properly for international competitions. She decided to participate at the last minute and still came back with three third places. This is the confidence given to her by her talent. It seems that God wants her to continue swimming. So, she returned to the pool, continued to stay in the public eye, continued to get in the water, and continued to train.

8

Changes happen little by little.

Huang Guangyu discovered that Zhang Yufei, who returned to the swimming pool, gradually began to understand cooperation and learn to think from others' perspective. She is not an athlete with celebrity status, Huang Guangyu said. She was just immersed in her own world before, and everyone was surrounding her, leading her to train and helping her relax. But now, she remembers everyone. On his birthday, he will prepare small gifts for others. Fang Fang, the team doctor who accompanies her every day, cannot swim, so she volunteered to teach her how to swim little by little.

Throughout the year before the Paris Olympics, Zhang Yufei's schedule was packed, training from Monday to Saturday and "going to work" on Sunday, participating in filming, interviews, and commercial activities. She had almost no private time, but this arrangement made her very happy. She likes that she has a rich life, and it's not just about swimming.

She now loves collaboration and is used to working with a large group of strangers. "People" first met Zhang Yufei when she was filming a brand promotional video for Anta. Her sportsmanship, self-confidence, and positive attitude towards life were also important reasons why Anta chose her. Zhang Yufei now knows the shooting process very well and can design actions for herself without any reminder from the photographer. When participating in commercial activities, she will take the initiative to study shooting and event plans in advance. She can also talk at the scene and provide suggestions for product design in a professional capacity.

She also started to like the way she looked. During a recent photoshoot, Wang Yixuan found that when selecting photos, she chose a picture showing broad shoulders. Zhang Yufei said that now she feels that she looks good like this. This kind of strength is also a kind of beauty and has more vitality. The beauty.

Back as an athlete, Zhang Yufei gets up at 7:10 every morning to train. The coaches find that she practices very hard and is often the first to arrive and the last to leave. In the past, she practiced whatever the coach assigned her, but now she often comes back to the coach. In addition to the existing things in the plan, she also has things she wants to practice. In the past, it was Cui Dengrong who urged her to discuss technical details. Now she will watch the high-speed video frame by frame and run to ask the scientific researchers how to improve.

Sometimes I dream about swimming. I once pondered over a technical detail and spent a long time without being able to break through it. A few days later, I saw Zhang Yufei running over excitedly and said that she had finally figured out the solution to her dream at night. I woke up and tried it. It really worked. I am happy to share it everywhere.

Before the game, Zhang Yufei will still "counse" from time to time. Sometimes, she will send a message to Kuili in advance and ask her to arrange a happy dance for the next day's warm-up. Before going on the court, Kuili and Fang Fang will also help Ask Zhang Yufei to tap her muscles to help her wake up her body functions.

At the 2023 National Swimming Championships, Zhang Yufei was unable to train in the water for two weeks because she had the flu. She started trying a new training model before the competition, which led to her final loss to 17-year-old Fujian player Chen Luying by 0.02 seconds. Zhang Min saw Zhang Yufei's post-match interview, and her daughter accepted the defeat calmly, "I learned to lose this year, as long as I feel the loss is valuable."

"Championship is a halo. There will always be a time when you let go, and there will always be a time when you return to being an ordinary person. So when I saw a young athlete surpass her at that moment, what I saw was not her loss and sadness, but her loss and sadness. I saw her looking very happy and joyful. I feel that my daughter has really grown up, which I am very happy about." Zhang Min said.

Zhang Yufei said: "It took me a year and a half to accept that the Olympic championship only represents your glory in that one game. It does not mean that you will be a winner from now on to the rest of your life. That is not the case. So I have to slowly accept that I still have to return to the daily life of an ordinary athlete."

9

Before the Paris Olympics, during the training days in Shanghai, I could only sleep in on Sundays. Fang Fang was Zhang Yufei's team doctor and lived in the same room with her. On June 16, it was not time to get up in the morning. The lights were not turned on and the curtains were all drawn. When Fang Fang woke up, she saw Zhang Yufei lying on the bed, in the dark. Zhong stared at the phone without saying a word. After a while, she said silently: "Hey, there is always someone who can make me sleep well."

The same plot happened three years ago—— Also on June 15th, it was also the National Olympic Trials, and it was also the women's 100-meter butterfly. 21-year-old Gretchen Walsh swam a time of 55.18 seconds, breaking the eight-year-old time world record, and even significantly improved the world record by 0.30 seconds. This far exceeds Zhang Yufei’s public results.

The difference is that three years ago, Zhang Yufei was so devastated after receiving the news that he didn't even go to training the next day. But this time, Zhang Yufei took the initiative to go to Cui Dengrong and proposed a new goal, "I want to see if I can Become a better person". They quickly returned to the scientific training rhythm, returned to the familiar data analysis link, analyzed the details of technical movements frame by frame, and planned more detailed targeted training.

During that time, Zhang Yufei was in good condition. She gets up at 7 o'clock in the morning and eats a piece of butter cake. The sweeter it tastes, the happier she is. Then she goes to the training hall with Fang Fang and does warm-up exercises with Kuili. After listening to Huang Guangyu's plan for the day, she starts a whole day of training. She set a sleep alarm clock for herself to remind her to go to bed at 10:59 every night, one minute before she would have to stay up late. One day she woke up and told Fang Fang that she had a sweet dream. She dreamed that she entered a candy house like in a fairy tale. Everything was sweet when she entered. It was "very dreamy" and she woke up very happy.

After each day's training, the coach will organize a rating. Based on each person's training performance that day, the total score is 10 points, of which 5 points are the athletes' self-evaluation and 5 points are the coach's rating. Zhang Yufei often gives herself a 4-point score. Once she even gave herself a 6-point score, "I swam well today, I have to praise myself."

It was during that time that Zhang Yufei and I had a video call. She said that she was looking for a song that she listened to during the Paris Games - during the Tokyo Olympics, she had a song that was played on loop. As long as she heard this song, she would be in a good mood and her performance would be good. When we first met, she also introduced to me in detail her swimming bag full of "good luck", which contained all kinds of things - a little angel pendant given to her by her grandma, a small statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva, and various gifts given by friends. She planted energy stone bracelets, Buddha strings that were blessed at Yonghe Lama Temple, and the jade that the coach gave her that means "a reed flies". There is also the copy of "Murphy's Law", and there are various Lina Bells hanging outside the bag.

She said while counting, "Actually, I don't believe this. My mother even laughed at me and said, "There are so many gods in your bag. Are you afraid of the gods fighting?" But I said, I pretend to be all, no matter what. Which god is it? Just have one that works for me! "

has another one that works best for me. "Bring Director Cui with me, I will feel at ease if he is here. He doesn't need to say anything, as long as he is there." Zhang Yufei said with a smile, "This is the first amulet."

During that time, talking about Both Zhang Yufei and Fang Fang feel that she is more mature and confident. Seeing that the young team members are nervous, Zhang Yufei will take the initiative to help others relax, "Don't be nervous. It doesn't mean that after this competition, we will not be nervous." We don’t need to be afraid when we compete next time.”

But at that time, she knew in her heart that the Olympics were held every four years, and Paris was of great significance. After all, waiting for another four years in Los Angeles would be full of unknowns. After spending the first time watching, After a period of time without much fluctuation, the impact of the new women's 100-meter butterfly world record on Zhang Yufei began to appear.

CCTV’s team recorded Zhang Yufei at that time. She described the two months of training in Shanghai this way: From the end of May to mid-June, she was very excited and happy. She felt that she was on the road to the Olympics she had imagined. But not long after, the new women's 100-meter butterfly world The record was born. At first, she was very excited and felt that she could try it. But as her physical condition and mentality fluctuated, she began to be afraid. What if she didn't perform well in the Olympics? What if you don't get the gold medal? "Every day is not very good," she choked up a little when she said this. "Why does it feel so difficult for my third Olympic Games?" She said that as she grew older, she finally knew that she should go to the Olympics before the Olympics. I want to do something to make the game more perfect and to achieve further results. However, "I don't have to do many things. If I work hard, it can really be completed."

It was a day full of self-doubt, not only doubting myself, but also doubting the coach.After seven years of cooperation, Zhang Yufei and coach Cui Dengrong have already established a solid tacit understanding and trust, but even so, the 26-year-old will still panic, "I'm afraid that I won't win the championship. Dad will ignore me and I don't like it." I don't want to take me anymore, even though I know this won't happen."

This is the truest story - Olympic champion is just a temporary title, it will not create an indestructible body. A person will not be made omnipotent overnight. Under the halo, she will always be a real person. She will still have weaknesses, be confused, and be shaken. There are not so many "conquers" in life. The life of a real person, Being able to face your own weaknesses calmly and constantly confront them is brave enough.

This is the most valuable thing about Zhang Yufei. She never hides her weaknesses. She said that whether it is before Tokyo or after Tokyo, she will still "counse" before a competition. "It's just a matter of percentage. Maybe this time it is 30% who want to quit, and that time it is 80%." % wants to withdraw, but most of me want to withdraw." When the camera is facing her, she always smiles, and sometimes makes a victory gesture excitedly. That vigorous gesture gives people the feeling of, "I'm fine, I'm fine, I will kill whoever I see today." But only She knew that she was extremely panicked before the game started, and she didn't feel confident all the way out of the locker room. The actual voice in her heart was, "I can't do it. It's over. Will I lose today?"

But in terms of action, she never really quit - at the Paris Olympics, Zhang Yufei would appear in the La Défense Stadium on almost every swimming competition day. She participated in 13 competitions in 6 events, and stood in every event. On the podium, on the day of the women's 200-meter butterfly final, despite severe physical discomfort caused by dysmenorrhea and fever, she still insisted on finishing the race and won a bronze medal. After the game, she wiped away her tears while putting down her harsh words. : "Even if I die today, I will die in the swimming pool."

Before leaving for Paris, Zhang Yufei said that she has three wishes. The first is "I want to surpass my last (Olympic) medal performance" and the second is "Hope "Be able to have a world record of my own", and "I hope there is air conditioning in my room."

Now, the answer is revealed: the third wish was easily fulfilled, and the first wish was fulfilled as much as possible - she won 1 silver medal and 5 bronze medals in 6 competitions, becoming the athlete with the most medals in the history of the Chinese Olympic Games. But her second wish came true. After the women's 100-meter butterfly final, while wearing a bronze medal, she said to the television cameras: "I really want to have a world record of my own." After becoming the Olympic champion, this It was almost the first time that Zhang Yufei showed disappointment and regret on TV cameras. On the podium, she had been trying her best to hide it, but when she stepped off the podium, countless cameras captured her quietly crying. On social networks, "Yufei, don't cry" ranked first on Weibo, but someone silently left a message below: I feel deeply sorry for Yufei, but also happy for her, because she finally doesn't have to face the camera with a smile forever. .

The women's 4x100-meter medley relay was the last swimming event of the Paris Olympics. Zhang Yufei once again won the bronze medal. Walking through the interview area, she was back to being the "sweetheart girl" who is always sunny. She smiled and joked: The result is quite good Okay, I won a lot of medals, but it would be nice if the colors could be changed.

The night before leaving the Olympic Village, Zhang Yufei stuffed the medals into her suitcase one by one. The Paris organizing committee provided each medal with a large box, which was very heavy. As she packed it, she worried that the luggage would not Will be overweight - according to the secular definition, especially in the competitive sports world of winners and losers, this is far from a "10" result, but for an Olympic champion's real life, facing and experiencing all this, it makes She is one step closer to that "10".

10

In the eyes of a talented athlete who has seen countless peaks, what is the real "10"? In June 2024, the speech delivered by Federer, the king of tennis and 20-time Grand Slam winner, at the Dartmouth College graduation ceremony may be able to answer this question.

Federer set three themes for that speech, and almost every theme can echo Zhang Yufei's sports career.

The first topic is talent. Federer said that for any sport, talent is of course very important. He will not stand here and tell everyone that it doesn’t matter whether they have talent or not. Of course, there are many types of talent, such as discipline, patience, and belief in yourself. It is talent, but "I hope you can realize like me that effortlessness is just a myth", because what is more important than talent is always: everyone must work hard.

The second theme is a perspective on failure - you can work harder than you think, but you will still fail. Federer takes himself as an example. He has participated in 1,526 tennis matches throughout his career, with a winning rate of 80%. However, in all the games he won, his scoring rate was only 54%. That is to say, the points he won were only 54%. A little more than your opponent, so you have to learn not to get too hung up on every shot. After all, life is like a roller coaster, with ups and downs. There is no absolutely perfect game in this world. Learn to deal with failure, sometimes Lessons are more important than winning.

The third theme is an eternal topic that every athlete must face - life is more important than the field. Countless people have asked Federer, what will you do after you retire? The answer is simple: driving the children to school, playing chess with strangers online, and vacuuming the house. Federer said that he loves this kind of life. Winning a Grand Slam championship is important, but having your own life, traveling, and Reading, making friends, and starting a family with the people you love are equally important. This is something he understood very early on: "Tennis can allow me to see the world, but tennis can never become the world." When

communicated with Zhang Yufei, she also talked about the significance of swimming to her, and the answer was also shared with Federer. Similarity-swimming took her to a wider world, but it was never the only one in her world.

"In the beginning, I was obedient to swimming, obeying arrangements, and obeying my mother's wishes, because I didn't want to practice. My mother insisted on me training when I was a child. I felt that giving up halfway would make my mother unhappy, so I kept swimming, just for one. The word is obedience. I moved from the city team to the provincial team when I was 12 years old. At that time, swimming meant extra points for most people. A sports extra point can help you go to a good university, but that For a while, I didn’t expect it to add points, and I didn’t think I wanted to make swimming a career. I couldn’t tell what it was. It wasn’t until I joined the national team that I started to feel that it was a bit like my career. , it accompanies me every day, and I take it for granted, and we have been getting along like this."

"After Tokyo, it has become more like a part of my life. For me, Zhang Yufei would not be who I am now without it. I can't. I say I love swimming, but everything I have is what it brings me. Swimming has taken me to the international arena, given me many new identities, and allowed many people to see me. I am very grateful. It..." She suddenly jumped out of her serious narration and laughed, "But at the same time, I don't want to love it anymore!"

As for swimming, what exactly is it? She thought for a while, raised her head and replied very seriously: "It's a noble man, a noble man who has been with me for a long time."

But now, it is time to explore a new life. Although after the 100-meter butterfly, she vowed that she would still like to go to Los Angeles four years later, in an interview before leaving Paris, Zhang Yufei said that she would not swim for a while and wanted to try something different. To spend time with your family, travel or study - no matter how dazzling a genius is, he will eventually leave the game. We talked about this topic before going to Shanghai to prepare for the Paris Olympics. Zhang Yufei said that seeing her teammates who were much younger than her swim well, she seemed to see herself a few years ago, "What do I have to be afraid of?" Yes, I am in my rising period, I will fight whoever I see.I envy this state, but I can no longer return to that state... It's like listening to Xiao Pan (Pan Zhanle) saying that winning the championship should become a habit. I understand him very well and agree with this sentence. It's just that This sentence no longer applies to me now. "

Life is always more important than the field. At this moment, the door to the new world has slowly opened. At the age of 26, this girl.