In the early morning of August 3, Beijing time, the final of the men's individual 200-meter medley event started at the La Défense Stadium, and Chinese player Wang Shun won the third place with a time of 1 minute and 56 seconds, winning a valuable bronze medal. It has created a miracle of standing on the podium in this event for three consecutive Olympic Games.
After winning the Tokyo Olympics, Wang Shun completely surfaced from the state of being "pressed underwater" in previous years and became a well-deserved leader of the Chinese swimming team. As a veteran of the four dynasties of the Olympic Games, Wang Shun has been practicing what he said after winning the Tokyo Olympics: "When you get off the podium, everything starts from scratch". Leaving for Paris again, he called himself "teenager Wang Shun", and he has been alone for 13 years from his birth to rewriting the history of Chinese men's medley.
Highlights alternate with frustration, achievements and ups and downs. Wang Shun has never stopped on the road of "going upstream".
The gold medal was much heavier than expected
There's never a shortage of kings in the lane of the medley. Wang Shun debuted in 2011, when Phelps, the "eight-gold king" of the Beijing Olympic Games, and Rochet, the best male athlete selected by FINA (now known as "FINA World"), were in the limelight and almost monopolized the medley event.
After the two gradually faded out of the world swimming scene, Japan's Daiya Seto quickly stepped onto the stage of history, winning three golds and one bronze in the individual 400m medley event at the four World Championships from 2013 to 2019, especially at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, where he won two gold medals in the 200 mixed and 400 mixed in a row. Then, the best time of the 400 mixed season set before the Tokyo Olympics, combined with the advantage of playing on home, made him the top favorite to win the medley gold medal.
At that time, no one believed that Wang Shun had the potential to win the championship, and some advertisers had briefly approached Wang Shun, but eventually gave up because they judged that "he could not win the gold medal and was not an athlete who had to be signed".
But Wang Shun won this gold medal that had a very important impact on himself, the Chinese swimming team, and the world swimming world when no one was optimistic. It marks a new breakthrough in Chinese men's swimming, and it also marks the end of the United States team's monopoly on the men's 200m individual medley event since 2004.
Wang Shun takes this gold medal very seriously, he is worried that when he wakes up, he will find that winning the championship is just a dream, and he has to put the gold medal under the pillow when he sleeps, "I want to take a closer look at it, I have been fighting until now for it." The gold medal is much heavier than I thought it would be, and it contains my life."
"It's been in the past 10 years, and it's not in vain." In an interview in the second half of 2021, Wang Shun said with a smile.
Wang Shun won the gold medal in the men's 200m individual medley at the Tokyo Olympics
Wang Shun always laughs, he rarely cries, the last time he was known to shed tears was after winning the Tokyo Olympics, his junior brother He Junyi ran over and hugged him excitedly, "Look at the last time you turn around, you will know that there is." Wang Shun didn't hold back in front of coach Zhu Zhigen, and tears fell.
Wang Shun has always been emotionally stable and known for his gentleness, and his lack of favorability in the early days also has something to do with his mildness. As an athlete, having edges and corners and character will be regarded as "impulsive", and Wang Shun, who lacks this "do it if you don't accept it" temperament, is naturally considered "not strong enough".
Wang Shun didn't care: "What kind of person I am, I just need to know it myself." ”
It wasn't until he won gold at the Tokyo Olympics, when he sat on the waterline and raised his arms and shouted and slammed his hands into the water, that people finally saw his explosive side, and finally got a glimpse of the mental journey of an Olympic champion in ten years.
Relax and keep your feet on the ground
With the six gold medals at the Shaanxi National Games, the Paris cycle has officially begun, and Wang Shun urgently needs to set a new goal for himself after the Olympic championship.
He is aiming for a Grand Slam of gold and has an Olympic gold medal, an Asian Games gold medal and a gold medal at the World Short Course Championships, but one gold medal at the Long Course World Championships. He also admitted that it is easy to fall asleep after thinking too much about this problem, so he no longer thinks about it, only focuses on the present moment, and does a good job every day.
But everything did not go as he wanted, at the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka, Wang Shun ranked 16th in the 200 mixed preliminaries and was almost eliminated; He finished 11th in the semi-finals and missed the final. In the 400m medley, he was disqualified for a foul.
Less than 2 months before the opening of the Hangzhou Asian Games, doubts poured in, but Wang Shun did not say much. Rather than talking about the emotional ups and downs of the low tide, he is more willing to talk about how to hold back the energy to rebuild the goal.
Therefore, after swimming 1:54.62 to break the Asian record and win the gold medal in the Asian Games, Wang Shun's comments through Weibo were: "The Asian Games at the doorstep, let the national flag be raised, the national anthem played, and do what you say." I'm happier than I was to be able to break my Asian record! The age of 29 years old is just a number, and the person who says I can't do it, do you see that this result is okay! ”
Three years later, in Paris, the favourite for the title was the host country's Leon · Marchand, who swam 1:55.74 in the first half of the year, but was in a mystery at the Olympic trials in France, swimming only 1:56.33.
However, Marchand is in excellent form at home, having won three gold medals in the first few days of competition, and at the 40,000-capacity La Défense Stadium, he is a complete superstar. The France audience sang the "Malfair Song" outside the stadium, and his appearance was often accompanied by a sea of cheers.
In the final, Wang Shun in 6 lanes, butterfly and backstroke are almost on the same level as Marchand, swimming 33.01 seconds in the breaststroke section, almost equal to his best section, freestyle is his strength, and finally he won the bronze medal with a time of 1 minute 56 seconds, standing on the podium of the men's individual 200m medley event for three consecutive Olympic Games, Marchand won gold, United Kingdom's Duncan won silver.
For a 30-year-old veteran, this is not an easy task. CCTV commentator said, "If you have seen Wang Shun, who polishes his breaststroke skills with his teammates who are 10 years younger than him, Xu Jiayu, who can't afford to return to water at seven or eight o'clock in the evening, and Pan Zhanle, Zhang Yufei, Qin Haiyang and Yang Junxuan, who are dragging more than ten kilograms of buckets to sprint, and every player of the Chinese swimming team, you will understand how eager we are to be in such a high-spirited state and have no regrets." ”
After winning the gold medal in the 200m men's individual medley at the Tokyo Water Sports Center three years ago, Wang Shun mentioned a phrase he likes very much - "follow this hard journey to reach the sky", which means that behind a person's success, there is often hard work that no one can imagine. But when he came to the Paris cycle, Wang Shun chose "relaxed and down-to-earth" as his key words.
Drawing the end of the Paris cycle with a bronze medal, although there are regrets, Wang Shun still feels that it is complete.
"The results are not ideal, but I still want to swim a good result," Wang Shun said in the post-race interview, "although I didn't do it, I still stood on the podium, and I am proud of my efforts." ”
Three years have passed quickly, and the persistence that he said when he stepped off the podium at the Tokyo Olympics to Paris has been successfully realized. After the game, the reporter asked Wang Shun if he wanted to hold on any longer, and the 30-year-old Wang Shun smiled and said, I hope I can go to Los Angeles in 2028.
The road is long and the line is coming, and the future can be expected. "Youngster" Wang Shun, see you in Los Angeles.
Source: The Paper