For Zhang Zhijie's sister, June 30 is a special day.
This day is not only her birthday, but also her brother's first match day at the Asian Youth Badminton Championships.
In an interview afterwards, Zhang Zhijie's sister told the media that Zhang Zhijie had made an appointment with her to give her a big victory as a birthday gift.
However, it backfired.
Sister Zhang Zhijie, who was sitting in front of the TV watching the live broadcast of the game, would not have imagined what kind of tragedy she would witness.
On July 1, Asia Feather and Indonesian Badminton Association issued an announcement.
Chinese badminton player Zhang Zhijie suddenly fainted on the court and later died due to ineffective rescue, the cause is unknown.
As can be seen from the live video from the multi-angle lens:
During the game, Zhang Zhijie suddenly fell on the dry and hard plastic floor, struggling and convulsing.
About 40 seconds later, the first responders rushed into the venue; Two minutes later, Zhang Zhijie was carried off the field.
In the end, it was not salvageable.
The accident caused a huge sensation in the badminton world.
Both netizens and Zhang Zhijie's family members have questioned the first aid measures for the Indonesian event.
Seventeen-year-old badminton prodigy
It is not an exaggeration to say that Zhang Zhijie was born for badminton.
Born in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, he was introduced to the sport of badminton in kindergarten. At that time, everyone just thought that this sport would become a lifelong hobby for this child.
But Zhang Zhijie shocked everyone with his talent.
〓 Zhang Zhijie and his teammates
He first entered the Jiaxing Children's Sports School for full-time training, and then, in the third grade of primary school, he was sent to the Zhejiang Provincial Badminton Team for harder training as an outstanding student.
Then, in 2022, he was selected for the Chinese national badminton youth team and quickly became the main player.
If you want genius to shine, you must water it with sweat.
The ultra-intense training in the youth team allowed the talented to complete his own metamorphosis, and he began to stand out from his peers:
In 2022, Zhang Zhijie won the national championship in the 15-year-old group at the National U15 level badminton singles competition. He not only withstood the pressure personally, but also tried his best to score points for the entire Zhejiang team. His coach Ding Yang commented:
"He has a maturity that far surpasses his peers."
At the beginning of this year, Zhang Zhijie won the singles world championship at the Youth Badminton International Grand Prix held in the Netherlands.
No one doubts that he will be a rising star and the hope of Guoyu's future.
〓 Zhang Zhijie won the world championship in the Netherlands
However, outside the badminton court, Zhang Zhijie never showed the hardships of training on his face.
People who knew him said he was an easy-going and mature child.
In a photo with his teammates, he always wants to be the most eccentric.
Even if it is a daily candid photo, he shows his mood and state without any worries.
He also used the fruits of his hard work to give back to his family.
He used all the prize money for his first World Series championship to buy gifts for his family.
Just before the competition period for this trip to Indonesia, he also took the time to send home the acceptance letter of the guaranteed university, wanting to share the joy with his family.
No family can accept that such a wonderful and sensible child should leave his side in this way.
Looking back at the video at the time of the incident, many netizens were very puzzled.
At the end of the round, Zhang Zhijie passed the ball to his opponent and then fell to the ground with a bang.
Experts from the Second Hospital of Zhejiang University said that this kind of falling to the ground with obvious precursors should first suspect acute arrhythmia, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation should be taken as soon as possible.
According to the first aid staff, within four minutes of cardiac arrest, it is the "golden time" for rescue. If effective treatment is given within four minutes, there is a more than 50% chance that the patient will survive.
The medical team at the scene had already spent 2 minutes just putting Zhang Zhijie on a stretcher. The rescue was carried out from the afternoon to midnight, and after seeing Zhang Zhijie fall to the ground from the live broadcast, it took his family nearly four hours to get in touch with the coaching team.
This made Zhang Zhijie's sister difficult to accept. She believes that when the organizers responded to emergencies, they did not respond in a timely and effective manner, which allowed Zhang Zhijie to hit the worst of all the bad possibilities.
But not until the paramedics at the scene lifted him on a stretcher.
Zhang Zhijie's right hand is still tightly clenched on the racket.
Badminton is more tiring than you think
Having a heart attack in the professional arena is indeed very dangerous.
In this year's European Championship, Denmark's Eriksen once went through a ghost gate.
In the group stage of the Euro 2021 tournament against Finland, Eriksen suddenly fell to the ground without warning on the field, and the referee immediately noticed the problem and whistled for the medical team to enter the stadium for first aid.
Teammates voluntarily formed a wall to protect Eriksen's privacy and provide an isolation environment for medical staff to focus on the rescue.
The entire stadium fell silent due to a sudden accident, and this race against the Grim Reaper was more tense and dangerous than any group game.
Captain Kjaer knelt on the ground and broke Ericksen's mouth to prevent him from swallowing his tongue, and the team doctor immediately performed heart compressions on Eriksen with his bare hands.
Thirty-seven seconds after the accident, the first-aid equipment arrived at the venue; After 52 seconds, the AED (automated external defibrillator) was also in place, and at 1 minute and 36 seconds, the medical staff began to perform CPR on Erickson.
After 14 minutes of textbook first aid, Eriksen finally turned the corner. And with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), he eventually returned to play and scored his first goal for Denmark at this year's European Championships.
Textbook first aid can indeed rescue people from the hands of death, but unfortunately, not every sudden accident can do this.
In football, basketball and other fields, similar accidents are not uncommon, but most people don't realize that badminton is also an extremely high-intensity sport that challenges physiological limits.
Badminton players need to frequently perform rapid acceleration, emergency stops and change direction during the game, which is extremely demanding on the muscles and joints of the lower limbs.
Swinging the racket vigorously and killing the ball is also a great test of the strength of the upper limbs. According to statistics, the current world record for tennis serve speed is 225 km/h set by the American cannon Roddick; At present, the maximum speed of badminton is 495 km/h.
Badminton involves a lot of high-intensity intermittent exercises, and the number of hard accelerations and stops is even higher than that of basketball and football.
A counter-intuitive fact is that the intensity of badminton is not only not inferior to tennis, which has a larger court and longer playing time, but may even be more intense.
Lin Dan holds this view: the intensity of badminton is far better than tennis.
Badminton takes less than half the time of a tennis player, but it runs longer distances and hits more shots.
At the 2019 Wimbledon Tennis Championships, Djokovic and Federer played five sets and fought for nearly five hours, setting a Wimbledon record.
In this match, Djokovic has a distance of 5.6km and Federer 5.8km.
In a badminton match with an average duration of just over an hour, players can cover a distance of up to 6 kilometers.
Of course, it is normal for athletes to have a high intensity of high-level competition, and the key is that the event organizers provide good organization and on-site support.
This is also the problem raised by Lin Dan earlier: under high-intensity competitions, the rest time given by the International Badminton Federation is not as abundant as that of tennis players.
Axelsen and Lee Chong Wei have both complained about too many games:
In fact, there are not a few badminton players who have had accidents due to heart problems in recent years.
Indonesia's Makis, who once won the men's doubles championship at the Beijing Olympics, died of a heart attack in an unofficial match in 2023.
The intensity of badminton is sometimes unbearable for professional athletes, and it is necessary for ordinary enthusiasts to pay attention to their physical condition during sports.
According to a survey report by the General Administration of Sports of China, badminton is the most popular sport in China, with a population of 250 million.
Despite the large number of participants, most of the time, we treat badminton as a low-intensity recreational sport, and sometimes it is easy to overlook its high-intensity interval sports.
Some scholars have analyzed the cases of sudden death in sports in Guangdong and found that the number of sudden deaths caused by badminton is second only to basketball and running, ranking among the top three among all sports.
In sudden cardiac death, overwork and exhaustion are important triggers. Before and after intense exercise, it is important to allow your body plenty of time to rest and recover.
Today, many media reposted Zhang Zhijie's interview before his death, and it can be seen that he held his breath in this event and wanted to prove himself, but unfortunately he had no chance.
On the field of the Asian Youth Games, everyone is remembering Zhang Zhijie in their own way.
In his first Men's Doubles match since his unexpectedly death, China's Hu Keyuan/Lin Xiangyi won 2-0. After the game, the two looked to the sky to comfort their deceased teammates.
Before the start of the team competition, all the athletes and coaches present gathered on the field, wearing black veils on their arms, and mourned for Zhang Zhijie.
On social media, teammates Wang Zijun and Pan Yinlong are mourning him:
The deceased has been dead for a long time, but Zhang Zhijie's unexpected death, everyone needs more than just nostalgia.
For Zhang Zhijie's family, an explanation is needed: Did Zhang Zhijie receive timely and reasonable treatment?
In addition, as the local media in Indonesia called for Badminton Talk, can this incident push the BWF to adjust the rules and put the health of athletes in a higher priority?
These may be the best consolation for Zhang Zhijie's soul in the sky.
Resources:
1. The "strongest" heart at the European Cup: On the 1100th day after the arrest, he came back to score. Xinhua
2.5 years of sudden sports death incident data tells you that these three types of sports are the most "dangerous".
3. Zhejiang Sports Bureau: 5 gold, 3 silver and 1 bronze! The Zhejiang men's team ended with 5 championships and set a record
Source: WeChat public account "Phoenix WEEKLY"
Authors: King Bun, Wang Dong
Editor: Deng Rumeng
[Disclaimer: This account is a theoretical and practical platform for integration and innovation in the field of propaganda and media, and is an official public welfare account, and this article is reprinted for the purpose of conveying more information. If there is a source label error or other inaccuracies, please contact us. We will correct it in a timely manner. Thank you]