Sports Big Business No. 2809, welcome to pay attention to the leading sports industry information platform
Wen | Lin Sen
Sports big business reporter
On the evening of February 11, China's Yan Wengang won the bronze medal with a total score of 4:01.77 in the final round of the men's steel frame snowmobile competition at the Beijing Winter Olympics, achieving a breakthrough of zero medals for the Chinese steel frame snow team in the Olympic arena of the project! Another Chinese player, Yin Zheng, finished fifth in 4:02.13. The champions and runners-up were won by Germany's Grote herr and Juncker.
Although China's steel frame snowmobile sports started late, it was not until 2015 that the national team was officially formed. However, the Chinese Steel Frame Snow Team made its debut at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and Geng Wenqiang, as the first person, broke into the final round for his first participation and finally won the 13th place.
Behind Yan Wengang's "zero breakthrough" that won the first steel frame snowmobile Olympic medal for China, the Chinese steel frame snow team has made many unknown efforts to achieve such results. However, it is undeniable that the mainland is still far from the three major skid events represented by Germany, and the task left to relevant practitioners in the future is still heavy and long.
Make history! Yan Wengang won the bronze medal for men's steel frame snowmobile
7 years to sharpen a sword! The long jump kid won the first Olympic gold
As we all know, the English name "Skeleton" of the steel frame snowmobile itself originally meant the meaning of "bone", and then derived into words such as "skinny person", "frame", "outline" and so on. Because the rules of the steel frame bobsleigh race require participants to lie face down on the bobsleigh and face forward in the race, the risk factor is the highest in the three major sliding sports with snowmobiles and sledges. Some netizens even joked in combination with the English name of the steel frame snowmobile, "The end of the snow track is orthopedics."
As early as 1928, the steel frame snowmobile was listed as a Winter Olympic event for the first time, but due to the average sliding speed of 130 km / h, and the lack of brake system protection is too thrilling, it has been removed from the List of Winter Olympic events twice, and it was not returned to the Winter Olympic family until 2002. This is enough to prove the high risk factor of this project.
The mainland steel frame snowmobile national team was not announced until after the successful bid for the 2015 Beijing Winter Olympics, which is nearly a hundred years later than Germany. This means that if you want to win a place in the monopoly of European teams, you can only hope to train hard and fight hard in daily life. Another big problem that followed was that the first steel frame snowmobile team members could only select materials from cross-border projects.
Yin Zheng and Yan Wengang raised the national flag after the game
Yan Wengang, who won the bronze medal, admitted after the game that the track of "Snow Dragon" has skied more than 500 times. In an interview, he said, "I was particularly disappointed by the results in the first few rounds, especially the third round, and I could only open up in the fourth round." Before the game, I played with myself, slapped my muscles, jumped, adjusted well, and finally spelled out this bronze medal. ”
Born in Tianjin in 1997, Yan Wengang has practiced long jumping for more than seven years. It is precisely because of its explosive power trained on the track and field field that it is favored by the steel frame snowmobile coaching team. In 2015, in the cross-border cross-border material selection activity held in Yanqing, the train from the Summer Olympics to the Winter Olympics was finally caught.
However, Yan Wengang's first steel-frame snowmobile was "pushed down" by the coach from the track halfway up the mountain in Calgary, Canada. The whole body hit the bruises and continued to train the next day, the swelling and bruises on the body throughout the winter could not be eliminated, and Yan Wengang, who was born in a long jump, gritted his teeth and survived the first winter, which is also a collective portrayal of the hard training of Chinese steel frame snowmobilers, who tried to overcome difficulties and fears through hundreds of taxi trainings.
Just as the so-called kung fu pays off, at the 2018 European Championship King's Lake Station, Yan Wengang won the first European Championship in history for the Chinese steel frame snow team, breaking the monopoly of German players on the event championship, and greatly improving the confidence of the Chinese steel frame snow team. In the following years, the Chinese team has repeatedly achieved good results in various events of steel frame snowmobiles. In the 2021-2022 season, the Chinese steel frame bobsleigh training team won a total of 8 European Championships, 2 Intercontinental Cups and 1 World Cup. Behind the rapid progress, it is full of "overtaking in curves" and "lying down to taste courage".
Yan Wengang glided in a steel frame snowmobile race
For the future vision of the steel frame snowmobile project, Yan Wengang called for more transfer athletes to join this "niche project". He said after the race, "Everyone may think that the steel frame snowmobile may have some risks, but in fact, through many system trainings, the danger will be avoided, and we will enjoy this track very much." ”
Three reasons have made Germany's three major gliding events dominant
For Germany, the hegemon of the three major skiing events mentioned many times above, with its dominant performance in the field of bobsleigh, bobsleigh and steel frame snowmobile, it is currently in the second place in the medal table with 7 gold, 5 silver and 1 bronze in the Beijing Winter Olympic medal table, only behind Norway, which ranks first in 8 gold. Among them, all four gold medals in the bobsleigh event of the Winter Olympics were won by Germany, and since the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, only one of the three Winter Olympics has been snatched by Austria outside Germany.
German athletes won the gold and silver medals of the men's steel frame snowmobile of the Beijing Winter Olympics
And why can the Germans repeatedly win on the three major sliding events? In the view of the big sports business, it is mainly due to the three factors of venue hardware facilities, participation in the population base and high-tech research and development.
First of all, extreme sports such as sledding and elevated snowmobiles must have professional tracks to ensure safety. Looking at the world, there are a total of 17 international standard bobsleigh tracks including the mainland national bobsleigh center "Snow Dragon", and Germany alone has 4 of them, the largest number of countries. As early as the 1970s, the professional circuits built in Germany were completed and put into use.
The Altenberg circuit was completed in 1977
Previously, Silke Otto, the great bobsleigh player in German history and two Olympic gold medalists, proudly said in an interview with Reuters that "for children growing up in Bavaria, going to sled is as natural as walking." ”
Secondly, since the birth of the world's first bobsleigh club in Germany in 1889, German large and small bobsleigh clubs have sprung up like mushrooms, and they have continuously sent batches of good seedlings to professional institutions for systematic training from the age of 8, creating a group of talented young talents to stand out from domestic competitions. Similar to the continental table tennis team's internal selection competition, German bobsleigh athletes who want to qualify for the world competition on behalf of their country also need to go through layers of competition selection. Otto even likened the German national championship to a World Cup.
Third, with the increasing development of high technology, sports equipment full of high-tech attributes also plays an extremely important role in the competition. It should be known that in the three major gliding competitions, the gliding distance of 1 millisecond is about 4 centimeters, and often the victory or defeat of a game is between this millimeter.
German steel frame snowmobile athletes set off instantly
In the case of the human body's endurance limit, high-tech equipment has become the most critical part of the player's speed. Germany, which is famous for its industrial manufacturing technology, is also unambiguous in the research and development process of sled manufacturing, and they do not hesitate to use the material technology and wind tunnel experiment of F1 racing cars, and continuously upgrade and improve with athlete testing, so that German sled equipment is always at the world's leading level. In addition, sportswear minimizes air friction resistance when gliding at high speeds. This year's German national bobsleigh team has been invincible all the way, and it is the "champion robe" created by the professional sports brand DESCENTE Desant to escort it all the way.
Although The mainland started late in the three major sliding projects, it will surely accelerate our rapid catch-up pace when it recognizes the core advantages of its competitors. In addition to Yan Wengang's record bronze medal, "Made in China" such as the six-degree-of-freedom steel frame snowmobile training system, wind tunnel facilities and ANTA's first Winter Olympic steel frame snowmobile shoes will also add important weight to our future rise in the project. Anta steel frame snowmobile shoes have strong power, and the athletes' measured starting and propulsion stages are increased by up to 0.054 seconds, with an average increase of 0.023 seconds, helping athletes to win the game in thousandths of a second.
Yan Wengang started the game instantly
In the eyes of the world, the "breakthrough of zero" is the most dazzling component of the Olympic spirit and sportsmanship. The "breakthrough of zero" continuously achieved by China's steel frame snowmobile project reflects the exploration spirit of Chinese without fear of hardships and bravely climbing the peak. The breakthrough of Zero Olympic medals in Yan Wengang also calls for more young people to face difficulties. In time, China's steel frame snowmobile project will surely emit a more dazzling light in the world sports world.
Note: The images used in this article are from the Internet