laitimes

Newsweek丨17-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo swam to the Olympics

Peninsula All Media Reporter Niu Xiaofang Gu Chaoming

Defeat, counterattack, and then a ride to the dust; Talented, hardworking, and then spirited – almost every athlete who has risen to fame at a young age shares the same story framework. However, this is not the story of Zhang Zhanshuo.

It takes a little attention for ordinary viewers to find Zhang Zhanshuo's name in the list of participants of the Chinese swimming team at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

He is not the object of media scrutiny. Among the 31 athletes assembled by the Chinese swimming team, he is the "wait" listed behind Zhang Yufei, Wang Shun, and Ye Shiwen; In the list of "golden new generation" of Chinese swimming, he is listed behind Li Bingjie, Pan Zhanle, and Tang Qianting.

Zhang Zhanshuo, who just celebrated his 17th birthday two months ago, will first emerge in 2023. At that time, at the age of 16, he won the men's 400-meter freestyle final of the first National Student (Youth) Games with a time of 3:48.09, and was known as "one of the most potential reserve forces in Chinese men's swimming" and "Sun Yang's successor", as well as the "future Olympic champion" in the mouth of Pan Zhanle, the leader of the new generation of international swimming......

On the evening of July 27, 2024, Beijing time, as a participant in the fifth group of the men's 400-meter freestyle preliminaries, he stood on the starting platform of the 50-meter long pool at the La Défense Stadium in Paris, France, to start his Olympic debut. At 18:23, the whistle blew -

3:46.76 is the duration of his debut. 12th place is his position. Missing the final is an unsatisfactory ending to this dream journey.

And his story is the story that belongs to the majority.

Newsweek丨17-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo swam to the Olympics

Teenager Zhang Zhanshuo (photo provided by the interviewee)

The youngest world champion

If Zhang Zhanshuo's story is made into a movie before July 27, 2024, this scene may be placed at the beginning:

After a whistle, eight swimmers jumped from the starting platform into the water almost simultaneously. After the first turn, China's Ji Xinjie was temporarily sixth, and he fought to catch up, and by the time the second baseman Wang Haoyu took over, the Chinese team had caught up to fourth, and then, the third baseman Pan Zhanle rushed to second with a flying fish-like attitude, leaving the third-ranked Korea team far behind, and narrowed the gap with the first-placed United States team from 2.94 seconds to 1.11 seconds.

In the screams of the audience and the cheers of the commentators, Zhang Zhanshuo, the last stick of the Chinese team, set off-

I saw him leap forward, jumping forward quickly under the water, and the water splashed behind him, unstoppable.

50 meters, and the United States team is only one top position gap!

The first turned, and the gap widened again;

100 meters, closely followed;

The second turn, China and the United States go hand in hand;

At 140 meters, Zhang Zhanshuo is 0.01 seconds ahead of his opponent!

The last turn, the United States team overtake! 0.04 seconds behind;

In the last 35 meters, Korea ace Hwang Xuanyou is rapidly approaching from behind;

In the last 30 meters, Zhang Zhanshuo rushed to the first;

In the last 25 meters, Huang Xuanyou caught up! China and South Korea are rushing for gold side by side;

At the end, Zhang Zhanshuo won - by a narrow margin of 0.01 seconds.

At that moment, the Chinese team won the gold medal in the men's 4×200m freestyle relay at the 2024 World Swimming Championships in Doha with a time of 7:01.81, breaking the national record and achieving a breakthrough of "0" in the gold medal of the Chinese swimming team at the World Championships.

Please remember this date - February 17, 2024 Beijing time.

In an interview immediately after the game, Jang Zhan Suk, who was still out of breath, borrowed the famous phrase from Kobe Bryant's retirement speech, and he raised his arms and shouted: "What can I say, anything is possible."

Although, after calming down, the 1.95-meter-tall man leaned down slightly like every time he faced the camera, and said in an old-fashioned tone: "In the relay event, one person is not strong, (is) the glory of the team." ”

Under the five-star red flag, the 16-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo and his teammates took the podium to lift the second world gold medal of his athletic career – five days earlier, he and his teammates had won the men's 4×100m freestyle relay – becoming the youngest world champion in the history of Chinese men's swimming.

It can be said that this story contains almost all the bridges of a perfect sports story: the peak of the hope - the world record holder of the event, the United States team, the respectable opponent, the "first brother" of Korea swimming, Hwang Xuanyou, and the underage athletes who have not been expected to do so, twists and turns, and most importantly, a happy ending with a weak counterattack.

Newsweek丨17-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo swam to the Olympics

The Chinese team won the gold medal in the men's 4×200m freestyle relay at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha (Source: Visual China)

Newsweek丨17-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo swam to the Olympics

Zhang Zhanshuo in the competition (Photo source: Visual China)

Another version

If there are also cameras behind the scenes, the audience will see another version of the story.

On the eighth day of the first lunar month in China, the game was held in the early hours of the morning, and Zhang Zhanshuo's father, Zhang Xunshan, and his wife stayed in front of the television at home in Qingdao.

Before the start of the finals, Zhang Xunshan received a call from his son, "He said that the coach asked him to swim the last stick, and I was shocked." ”

Obviously, this stick in the preliminaries belongs to Pan Zhanle. Zhang Xunshan didn't know the deep meaning of the coach's adjustment of the layout, but he instantly understood the pressure of the 16-year-old boy, "This is a double-edged sword, if you swim well, it is glory; If he doesn't swim well, the pressure from all sides will give him ......"

As a father, Zhang Xunshan forcibly concealed his anxiety and pretended to comfort his son easily: "Where do you go, they are all shorter than you, right?" What are you afraid of. You just have to be big and swim at your best. ”

I don't know if my encouragement will work, but after hanging up the phone, Zhang Xunshan soon saw in the live TV screen that after Dong Zhihao won the 200-meter breaststroke championship, almost all the athletes relaxed and pressed their shoulders around the arena, but Zhang Zhanshuo was nowhere to be seen.

"I saw him coming by, and when I saw the camera, he simply smiled. He was always thinking about how to swim this stick in the future. Zhang Xunshan recalled.

This scene, when it was edited out and spread on the short video platform in the later stage, the moment Zhang Zhanshuo appeared was subtitled: "Zhang Zhanshuo is under a lot of pressure".

In the live broadcast on Japan TV, this adjustment even became one of the highlights of the game - "China puts the leader in the third bat, and Korea puts the leader in the last bat." The Japanese narrator said with interest.

When Zhang Zhanshuo was the first to touch the wall, the Japanese commentator said three times in a row: "This competition is so good!" ”

No one can swim all the time, it's the eternal law of competitive sports. As a result, the glorious moments of those legends are always replayed over and over again.

Five months have passed since the end of the 2024 World Swimming Championships in Doha, and Zhang Xunshan has watched the relay race twenty or thirty times, and he clearly remembers every baton time, every opponent, and every meter drawn by Zhang Zhanshuo. "Now that I think about it, I regret it (I didn't go to the scene), I didn't expect to win the championship." He said.

Also impressed by this game was Zhang Zhanshuo's coach Liu Ziqian in the Qingdao team. In the past few days, he is leading the team to participate in the Shandong Provincial Swimming Championships in Zibo, mentioning Zhang Zhanshuo's growth, and concisely summed it up with the words "water comes naturally".

After a pause, Liu Ziqian took the initiative to mention the relay race at the World Championships in Doha. "He's good at long distances, short middle distances are his weaknesses, and he swam pretty well." Liu Ziqian said bluntly, "That was a bit unexpected. ”

At the World Championships in Doha, another noteworthy detail is that when the reporter interviewed Pan Zhanle, who had just broken the world record in the men's 100m freestyle, the camera swept over Zhang Zhanshuo, who was sitting alone in the corner looking at his phone, he stood up a little embarrassed and explained the sentence "call Mom and Dad", and then quickly turned around to hand in his phone to the coach.

One can't ignore the fact that the youngest new World Champion, a burly teenager at 1.95 meters tall, still has a childish face. "Although he has such a big body, he is still a child in his thoughts and speech." Zhang Xunshan said.

To this day, the child has also come a long way. What kind of child is this?

The smallest player

In the process of Zhang Zhanshuo's growth, the keyword "young age" kept appearing.

On May 14, 2007, Zhang Zhanshuo was born in Qingdao, Shandong Province, in a family with "sports characteristics". Father Zhang Xunshan is a sports enthusiast, good at running and jumping, "100 meters can run for 12 seconds, 400 meters can run for 55 seconds, high jump can jump 1.75 meters", although without professional training, has reached the national level of third-level athletes. Her mother, Ding Lina, was a professional athlete in the Shandong Provincial Track and Field Team.

In Zhang Xunshan's memory, Zhang Zhanshuo's "motor cells are okay", and he has already shown his genetic advantages when he was two or three years old.

"After all, I was born by the sea, I can't swim, and it's not good to go out." Based on this consideration, Zhang Xunshan sent his son to the swimming pool of a primary school near his home to learn professional swimming. That year, Zhang Zhanshuo was not yet 6 years old.

Half a year later, 6-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo participated in the 3rd Qingdao Primary and Secondary School Student Swimming Competition in 2013, one year younger than the minimum age requirement for participation.

"He didn't have any idea about the competition at the time, he just liked swimming. He happily jumped to the starting platform, and I was surprised. What surprised Zhang Xunshan even more was that in this competition, Zhang Zhanshuo, the youngest in the audience, won 6 gold medals and 2 silver medals.

In a blink of an eye, in 2014, Liu Ziqian took over the Qingdao swimming training team. At first, the youngest child in the training team didn't attract much attention, but in later training, he found that the kid named Zhang Zhanshuo showed a higher swimming level than his peers.

In a 400-meter freestyle internal test in the team, the youngest Zhang Zhanshuo swam a result that was not inferior to his brother and sister, and Liu Ziqian mistakenly thought he was lazy, so he punished him for swimming one more round.

This episode was later specifically mentioned by Liu Ziqian, and in the version told by Zhang Xunshan, there is more distress and positive guidance from a father, as well as a little grievance and obedience from a 7-year-old boy.

"[This incident] proves that your ability is not bad, and you can swim so well at such a young age." Zhang Xunshan remembered that he had enlightened his son like this, and he also remembered that the young Zhang Zhanshuo "could listen to every word".

In Liu Ziqian's eyes, Zhang Zhanshuo's biggest characteristic is "very obedient", "very calm" and "especially able to endure hardships". He remembers one year of winter training, Zhang Zhanshuo was the one with the highest attendance rate among all the team members, "Other athletes don't have to go every other time because of a cold, but he is basically full of attendance." ”

The self-discipline of full attendance during winter training was extended by Zhang Zhanshuo to the provincial team and the national team, and he was always the one who raised his hand high when the coach counted who was full of attendance after the winter training.

"Middle- and long-distance runners have to endure more hardships than others, and if others plan to swim 5,000 meters, he will have to swim 8,000 meters or 10,000 meters. Not only did he finish rigorously, but he also exceeded his training schedule. Zhang Zhanshuo was in Liu Ziqian's eyes, "I can think openly and accept it, which is rare, after all, I am so young." ”

People often use "in the face of talent, hard work is not worth mentioning" to dissipate the amazing perseverance and unimaginable dedication of top athletes, but Zhang Xunshan, who accompanied his son step by step to a bigger platform throughout the whole process, understands, "There is no shortcut in sports, no matter how talented you are, without diligent training, you can't reach a height." ”

The hard work of training never complains, and he can't imagine it, but Zhang Xunshan remembers that on the way home after training, Zhang Zhanshuo, who was sitting in the back seat of the car, would always fall asleep.

"I'm glad and relieved." When looking back on his son's growth path, Zhang Xunshan sighed over and over again.

In 2018, Zhang Zhanshuo, who was only 11 years old, won two gold medals in one fell swoop at the 24th Shandong Provincial Games. From then on, a bigger stage unfolded before his eyes.

In 2019, 12-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo officially entered the Shandong Provincial Swimming Team.

Newsweek丨17-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo swam to the Olympics

Zhang Zhanshuo was 7 years old (photo provided by the interviewee)

Departing from Paris

In fact, it was not a rash decision to let Zhang Zhanshuo go to the provincial team. "At the age of 12, if you don't choose this major well, it will affect your child's life." Zhang Xunshan said.

At that time, Zhang Zhanshuo had been entering a key middle school in Qingdao for two months with his swimming expertise. Although he showed his swimming talent early, Zhang Xunshan never gave up his request for his son's cultural class.

Since elementary school, he has developed the habit of using his spare time at school during the day to write homework, and he has asked a tutor to make up for the courses he has missed when he goes out for training and competitions. Therefore, while his swimming performance has improved, Zhang Zhanshuo's academic performance can also maintain the middle and upper reaches.

Whether to take the road of sports in the future, this choice is too early and too early.

"I'm going to go swimming." In the end, it was Zhang Zhanshuo who made the decision himself. "He's very numerous, maybe he's thought about it a long time ago." Zhang Xunshan analyzed, "Since I was a child, I have been the first and second in every competition, and he also has a sense of accomplishment in his heart." ”

Zhang Xunshan remembered that on the day he sent his son to the provincial team, he was "very distressed and cried". However, this boy, who has been used to running around to compete and participate in training camps since he was a child, has already grown up quietly. "I didn't see him cry." Zhang Xunshan was a little emotional.

From that day on, Zhang Xunshan saw the child more frequently than once a week or two, to once a month or two, and then to once every few months.

What has changed is the size of the child - "I saw him once and was taller once, and I was still compared with him before, and then I could only compare with him." Now that he's getting stronger, I can't compare, and I have to look up at him. Zhang Xunshan, who is 1.85 meters tall, said.

Also changing is the location where the father and son meet – from Jinan, to Beijing, to Shanghai...... to Paris. Driving too far, it is inconvenient to take things by high-speed rail, because of the strict management of the team, children often need to be approved to go out, reunion in recent years, Zhang Xunshan always has to overcome the inconvenient traffic and extraordinarily complex process, sometimes only can "meet at the gate, talk, ask him".

The most recent meeting was in May this year, "After the competition in Shenzhen, the child said a lot of things, and asked us to go over and help clean up." Behind Zhang Xunshan's narration, it reflects his son's thoughts about his parents, and he will use every possible opportunity to achieve a family reunion.

Newsweek丨17-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo swam to the Olympics

In May this year, Zhang Zhanshuo and his parents said goodbye at Shenzhen Airport (photo provided by the interviewee)

At the beginning of July, Zhang Zhanshuo flew to Paris with the team, with a time difference of 6 hours from Qingdao. In addition to intense training, he finds time to video call his parents every other day.

"Sometimes it's one or two o'clock in the middle of the night, and the call is only one or two minutes, just say a few words, let us rest assured." Zhang Xunshan said that during this time, he obtained Zhang Zhanshuo's news more through the news and the Internet. "Searching for the 'Chinese National Swimming Team' is not to report him, but through the video footage, he may be captured and seen, and we feel relieved."

In the days when his son was not around, Zhang Xunshan did not remember any dreams about his competition, but at the end of the interview, he suddenly sighed, "It's too dreamy, it's like a dream." He repeated the phrase twice.

The dreamy thing is that "I didn't expect to be able to come to this point", the little boy who once accompanied his father to Qingdao No. 1 Bathing Beach to "take a bath", is now standing on the starting platform of the 50-meter-long pool of the Olympic Games. Every step behind him is what coach Liu Ziqian called "one step at a time".

Newsweek丨17-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo swam to the Olympics

After the 25th Shandong Provincial Games, Zhang Zhanshuo took a group photo with his parents (photo provided by the interviewee)

In the past five years, from the Provincial Games, the National Championships, the National Championships to the World Youth Championships, the World Championships, from 50 meters to 1500 meters, and even the swimming marathon, Zhang Zhanshuo has been left behind. Unexpected performances and results in competitions have made him known as a "star of hope" who is expected to make up for the shortcomings of the Chinese men's swimming middle and long distance events at the age of 16.

World Youth Swimming Championships, Israel, September 2023. Zhang Zhanshuo completed the devil's schedule of the men's middle-distance freestyle and medley competitions, 7 events, five podiums, and set a new personal best, and was awarded the "Best Men's Breakthrough Award at the World Junior Championships" by the famous swimming website "Swim Swam", and he is also the only athlete in this award who was selected without winning the championship.

December 2023, Jinan, National Swimming Championships. Zhang Zhanshuo surpassed Pan Zhanle, Fei Liwei and Ji Xinjie in the men's 400m freestyle event to win the championship, once again setting a new personal best, and at the same time reaching the A standard of the 2024 World Championships. This is an important battle for him to accumulate a "strong heart", and it is also on this occasion that Pan Zhanle made a famous prediction to reporters in a post-match interview: "(Zhang Zhanshuo is) a future Olympic champion, interview him more." ”

World Aquatics Championships, Doha, February 2024. Zhang Zhanshuo showed extraordinary competitive state and psychological quality in this competition, created a bloody counterattack chapter, and became the youngest world champion in the history of Chinese men's swimming.

……

Swim to the Olympics. For Zhang Zhanshuo, this is not the goal when he first jumped to the starting platform, it is the inertia of every leg kick and every arm stroke in the past 11 years.

Newsweek丨17-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo swam to the Olympics

The medal frame at home is full (photo provided by the interviewee)

Every story has a beginning, development, climax, and ending. What is certain is that the ending of the story of young swimmers chasing their dreams will not be on the starting platform of the Paris Olympics, nor on the podium. It should be in every jump, rowing hard, turning gracefully, and chopping waves.

"Walking off the podium, everything starts from scratch." When he was 16 years old, Zhang Zhanshuo once said in an interview.

If Zhang Zhanshuo's story is made into a movie after July 27, 2024, the final scene will probably look like this:

After a whistle that silenced the world, he dived into the water......

Read on