On the evening of August 5, Beijing time, in the gymnastics parallel bars final of the Paris Olympic Games, 26-year-old Chinese player Zou Jingyuan won the championship without suspense with a score of 16.200, and the "parallel bars king" deservedly deserved.
On the wall of Zou Jingyuan's national team dormitory, there is a painting on it, on which are written the words "God rewards hard work". This is left by Zou Jingyuan's senior brother and Olympic champion Feng Zhe. And this happens to be the best portrayal of Zou Jingyuan's gymnastics career.
"He's like a never-ending training machine, the Chinese gymnastics team usually trains a lot, but he is one to two times as many as the other team members." Zhang Chenglong, a retired Chinese gymnasts, once commented on Zou Jingyuan's usual training intensity. "He's a perfectionist, and he takes almost every move to the extreme. Sometimes, we were afraid that he would get injured and had to strictly control the amount of training he had. Teng Haibin, a former Olympic champion and coach of the Chinese gymnastics team, commented on Zou Jingyuan.
Hard training has always been a distinctive label on Zou Jingyuan. He commented on himself: "I'm an athlete who likes to try new moves, but when someone tells me a move, I want to try to see if it's suitable for me, so I practice it over and over again until I find the best one." ”
Zou Jingyuan is the absolute king in parallel bars, and his every set of moves is as standard and classic as a textbook. But behind it is the process of Zou Jingyuan's continuous pursuit of better performance and improvement, although he has had many psychological entanglements and even self-doubts.
"Actually, there was a time when I didn't dare to watch the footage of my previous game because I felt like I had a problem everywhere when I watched it." Zou Jingyuan told a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily, "But then I gradually learned to accept my own shortcomings. In fact, every move is not perfect, and when I realized this, I gradually started to watch my own game tapes, and I was able to get along with myself more peacefully. ”
"I think it's important to be perfect in training, but not in competitions, otherwise it can sometimes backfire." Zou Jingyuan added.
In fact, the knot of "chasing perfection" in parallel bars has troubled Zou Jingyuan for several years. Among them, the setback at the 2019 World Championships made him unforgettable. Zou Jingyuan, who was already a two-time world champion at the time, unexpectedly failed, and he did not even qualify for the final.
"I think that experience has a direct relationship with the mentality at the time. Actually, before the game, I thought more about how to express myself better and do better movements. But because I have won too many championships before, I think it is easier to win the championship. But when you don't win the championship one day, you will find that it is better to win the championship. After all, it's competitive sports. Zou Jingyuan said.
At that time, the mentality of "chasing perfection" in the competition made Zou Jingyuan evaluate him very much in the unexpected world. He said: "I'm always afraid that people will say that your moves are not as good as before, but I am obviously better than before, but why can't I do it? I don't want people to say, what's the point of you winning the championship with such a set of action quality? ”
It took almost two years for Zou Jingyuan to get out of this mindset, and he reached the pinnacle of his athletic career by winning the parallel bars gold medal at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics. "Before that fight, I didn't have any mental baggage, I just wanted to do this move, I didn't want to do it well." Zou Jingyuan recalled to a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily, "I think the Tokyo Olympics was the best set of moves I did in the past few years. I returned to my original self and crossed the psychological hurdle. ”
Entering the preparation cycle for the Paris Olympics, Zou Jingyuan is still the king of parallel bars, although he also felt a strong impact from other team members, but he did not change his original intention, maintained his love for gymnastics, and also maintained a strong strength.
Zou Jingyuan told a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily: "I think I am an athlete who likes to ponder and play gymnastics. Sometimes I can't sleep at night because I think about what kind of moves I want to practice the next day, so I go to the gym early the next day. Of course, during the period of preparation for the Olympics, I was more likely to train according to the plan. But I've always felt that I didn't think of gymnastics as a job. ”
In Zou Jingyuan's gymnastics career, he has never felt how hard it is to practice gymnastics, but it is full of fun, and he has been practicing gymnastics since he was 4 and a half years old. Zou Jingyuan is a native of Cuiping District, Yibin, Sichuan, when he was a child, he was selected by the coach of the city sports school, and there were more than 50 children who went to the city sports school with him, and in the end he was the only one who stayed. "I thought gymnastics was very fun, although many children were crying when they were practicing basic skills in leg presses, but I didn't think it hurt so much, I didn't quite understand what they were crying about." Zou Jingyuan said, "After that, from the city team to the provincial team and then to the national team, I walked up step by step, but I always felt that gymnastics brought me more fun." ”
"What are your goals in your gymnastics career?" A reporter from Beiqing Daily asked Zou Jingyuan. Without thinking, he replied: "The first is to perform gymnastics, and the second is to be able to participate in the Olympics many times." Because Chinese gymnastics is updated and iterated very quickly, it is not easy to appear in the Olympic arena, so my goal is to show myself as much as possible in the Olympic Games. ”
In this parallel bars final, Zou Jingyuan's performance was perfect, obviously superior to several opponents, and he deserved to defend his title. However, Zou Jingyuan also left a lot of regrets in Paris, after losing the team gold medal, he said with tears in his eyes, "The uncomfortable thing is that I have to wait another four years." But Zou Jingyuan is in his playing years, and four years later, he can still maintain his strong strength, and there is great hope for him and his teammates to realize their dreams in Los Angeles. For this ultimate goal, Zou Jingyuan will definitely continue to persevere.
Text/Beiqing Sports Special Reporter Song Xiang