The Paper's reporter Song Chengliang
The marathon swim of 10 kilometers is a tough endurance contest. The unpredictable undercurrent tides in the water and the "small action kicks" between athletes make this project full of surprises.
But at the Tokyo Olympics, China has the 2019 Gwangju World Championships women's champion Xin Xin.
On the morning of the 4th, 24-year-old Xin Xin won the eighth place in the Olympic Marathon Swimming 10 km event!
Xin Xin won the gold medal at the 2019 World Championships. Infographic
"Secret Struggle" in the Water
The 10-kilometer swimming marathon event, China did not start until the Rio Olympic cycle.
Xin Xin turned out to be an excellent long-distance swimmer, who once won the national championship in the 800-meter freestyle. Later, the coach thought that Xin Xin had the endurance to endure hardships and focus on the world, hoping that she would also try the open water project. In this way, Xin Xin gradually turned to the swimming marathon project.
At the Rio Olympics, Xin Xin and Zu Lijun became the first Chinese to participate in the Women's 10km Swimming Marathon event at the Olympic Games – she finished the fourth event, creating the best result in the event.
In July 2019, Xin Xin won the world championship in Gwangju, breaking the breakthrough of China and even Asia in the world championships of zero gold medals.
With a 0.9-second advantage to the side, Xin Xin did not dare to believe her victory, and she kept asking the Chinese team next to her after landing: "Am I the champion?" "Am I really the champion?" It wasn't until I got a positive answer that I was relieved.
"My expected goal for myself is actually to qualify for the Olympic Games, and I have thought about the top three or even the champion, but I think it is a very difficult thing, and the grasp is not very big."
Unlike indoor swimming competitions, open water events are conducted outdoors in rivers and lakes, and not only is the environment around the competition site and in the water unpredictable, but also because there is no division of the track, "secret competition" between players is also very common.
Xin Xin revealed that in that world championship, she had swum to a distance of 9.75 kilometers and was ready to start sprinting, but at this time, a hand grabbed her foot and dragged her backwards...
This kind of reasonable small action is also a very important factor in determining the results of the Olympic Games, but fortunately, Xin Xin's mentality is very good.
In her opinion, compared to the 64 people competing in the World Championships, the Olympic games have only 25 people, and the difficulty of the competition has been greatly reduced - these 25 people include the top 10 players in the World Championships, the 9 winners of the 9 failed tournaments (excluding the top 10 players in the World Championships), the continental champions of the five continents (excluding the top 10 players of the World Championships) and 1 host player.
"The physical confrontation and contact are certainly not as intense as at the World Championships, and I will focus more on my own matches." Xin Xin said.
Xin Xin made a breakthrough for China and Asia at the World Championships. Infographic
The secret of success is to be able to endure hardships
In 1996, Xin Xin was born in Jinan, Shandong Province, to an ordinary family of four, whose parents were ordinary wage earners.
Xin Xin's aunt and grandfather are famous swimming coaches in Jinan, Shandong Province, and almost all of their family have practiced swimming, but in the end, only Xin Xin persisted to the end. In her own words – "Maybe I'm better able to suffer." ”
Compared with indoor swimming in the past, the 10-kilometer marathon is more difficult in both intensity and environment, and the training after the transfer is far more difficult than imagined. She has to swim back and forth in the water dozens of times a day after training, and she can only comfort herself with something to eat after training and do something during breaks.
"I was more able to suffer then than I am now, both in intensity and volume, and I recovered well at a young age and at a very high level of training."
Generally, the training volume of short-distance athletes is 3000-4000 meters a day, and the training volume of long-distance athletes is about 8 kilometers, while the training volume of Xin Xin in a day is 15 kilometers.
"I sometimes envy sprint athletes and think how good it would be if I practiced short distances as well. But now that you've chosen this, you should stick with it."
The open water environment is also dangerous, often with jellyfish, seagrass, undercurrents and so on. While preparing for the 2016 Rio Olympics, Xin Xin went to Yantai, Shandong Province, for adaptation training, but unexpectedly was "attacked" by jellyfish.
"I can't describe how many jellyfish there were at that time—even the dense boats couldn't break away, but we still had to swim in that environment." I couldn't sleep at two or three o'clock at night, because my body was very itchy and painful. ”
The next day, Xin Xin said that her body was still sore, but even so, she still went into the water in the morning for 5,000 meters of normal training...
Xin Xin at the World Championships. Infographic
Becoming more and more confident and mature
After winning the World Championships, coach Jin Hao revealed some of Xin Xin's arrangements for preparing for the Tokyo Olympics.
"We may cooperate with some very good athletes abroad to do some joint training, and at the same time, we must follow our normal training plan, including plateau training, including winter training."
But the epidemic has changed a lot of plans, and Throughout 2020, Xin Xin has been training in Jinan for a long time. At the end of 2020, another 3 weeks of plateau training were conducted in Yunnan.
In March this year, the National Marathon Swimming Championships began, which was the only opportunity to train troops in actual combat before the Tokyo Olympics. After winning the World Championships, Xin Xin has not participated in open water competitions for more than a year. The coach signed her up for the men's 10km marathon, hoping she would find a sense of confrontation with international runners.
As the only girl to participate, before departure, the coach predicted the ranking between 30-40, but in the end, Xin Xin reached the finish line in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 02 seconds, the 13th, only 20 seconds slower than the champion male runner.
"I'm probably a little bit stronger than most boys, but there are a lot of players who do have a very big gap between my training ability and them, and my absolute speed in the pool is not as good as theirs." In Xin Xin's view, the reason why they can finally be faster than many male players is because they gave up during the game.
"They feel like they can't reach their goals and they have no confidence. I'm different, I just don't give up on normal games, even if I am thrown away by the first group, in the second group, then I am also competing with my own spirit. ”
In the almost two years since the World Championships and the Olympic Games, Xin Xin believes that he is becoming more and more mature.
"I'm much more mature than I was in previous games and my mind is much calmer than before. When you have this level, you may be lucky to win this championship. Luck does exist, because there are too many unexpected factors in this project, so it is when you have this competitive strength that luck is easy to use. ”
Editor-in-Charge: Ascendas
Proofreader: Luan Meng