Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, is the venue for this Olympic Games.
As a sports event, Olympic Games has a unique status that cannot be compared with any other sports-related activities. It has the longest cycle, the largest scale, the largest cost, the largest number of participants, the longest schedule, the largest scene, the highest degree of attention, and so on. There are dozens or hundreds of "most" like this.
It is undoubtedly the number one sports event of Blue Star.
So for the Chinese table tennis players, Olympic Games is a completely different experience from World Table Tennis Championships or Table Tennis World Cup.
Here, table tennis is just one of countless sports, and the seemingly large and shining Chinese table tennis players are only a handful among countless sports stars, and are not as conspicuous as imagined.
Whether it is diving, gymnastics, weightlifting, badminton, sports in which China also dominates the world, or basketball, football, sports in which China is not strong but has a large influence worldwide, its contestants have sufficient confidence to stand out from the rest of China Table Tennis.
Of course, the above is just an objective situation, and it does not mean that Chinese table tennis players really want to go out and compete with others.
In fact, when everyone from Huaping followed the large group of Chinese athletes to Olympic Village, they entered the fully closed training camp in a very low-key manner.
In this Olympic Games, the table tennis event was placed in the middle of the entire competition schedule, which gave everyone ample time to overcome jet lag, adjust their status, and study their opponents.
On the first day of closed training, the coaching staff formulated the overall strategy for this closed training: mixed doubles is the most important, followed by Men's Doubles Women's Doubles, and Men's Singles Women's Singles is the lightest.
This is not because they do not pay attention to singles, but because, in the current environment, based on actual combat tests over the past year, the coaching staff believes that the possibility of Huaping overturning in singles is extremely small.
Originally, in the second half of last year and the first half of this year, Sakura Country's Yamano Mia and Ichikawa Mima had created a lot of crises for Huaping in the Women's Singles project. However, as the second half of this year came, the Chinese women's team's young players Wang Yu, Shen Sha, Chen Tong, Yin Di and others began to rise rapidly, and continuously defeated Sakura Country Women's Singles's first sister Ichikawa Mima in various open tournaments.
At this point, an extremely subtle and fierce internal competition has formed between the old and new players in the women's team. Although the veterans have better results than the young players in the internal war, their results in the external war, especially when facing the player Ichikawa Mima, are actually not as good as the young players.
So in the last few months of the second half of the year, it seemed that they were stimulated by the young players. The top three veterans Jin Ling and Liu Wen also began to explode in the universe. They defeated the main players Sakura Country in the last few open tournaments. Only the veteran Zhu Lingling fell behind in the process.
But even if Zhu Lingling falls behind, it cannot be said that she did not play well or did not work hard, but because her technical and tactical system itself is a defensive and counterattack route. However, under the latest trend of Taiwan's table tennis offensive, her playing style has fallen behind, so she has no choice. After all, she has been playing for decades, and she cannot be allowed to make basic technical changes at Bensan's advanced age.
In short, although Wang Chao on the men's team seems to be competing with Bai Feng Lin Li, but really speaking, it is really a life-and-death competition on the women's team.
During the last team assessment before the team went to Mexico, the data released by the women's team showed that the results of the civil war between the main veteran and the main Xiaohua were extremely tragic. It was probably a 40-60 split, with the veteran slightly ahead.
In terms of performance in foreign battles, the results of the little flowers are better than those of the veterans, and they are also about 40% or 60%.
So in the final selection of Women's Singles candidates for the Olympics, Wang Wendong, as the head coach of the women's team, did not dare to name him directly. It was not that he had no courage, but that he really felt that no matter what choice he made, it was wrong. Based on the principle of being responsible for the team and China Table Tennis, he chose to turn to Cai Guodong for help.
Cai Guodong I didn't think it was that difficult at first, but after reading all the statistics and past performance statistics, the president of China Table Tennis Team was dumbfounded. He had no choice but to convene a meeting of the entire coaching staff. They discussed it for a whole day, taking into account all aspects, and made extremely subtle and difficult trade-offs and decisions before finally deciding on the list.
In previous years, Olympic Games usually chose veterans as the main players. Only when the number of veterans was not enough, young players would be added. But this time in Olympic Games, it is clear that all five veterans in the women's team are still alive and are still in their prime. However, in the end, the coaching staff actually sent a combination of two veterans and two young players. It can be said that it is the first time since the establishment of Huaping.
It can also be seen that the competition for power within the women's team is fierce this time.
The most amazing thing is that Tang Yuanyuan is on the list.
This is of course not because of how good her singles performance is, but because Olympic Games has a very disgusting rule: all doubles players must be selected from the singles registration players.
In fact, this is a rule that Olympic Games has had in table tennis for many years. The reason is clear at a glance, and it is naturally to restrict Huaping.
A long time ago, Huaping's mixed doubles, Men's Doubles and Women's Doubles players were specialized in special training and did not participate in singles. For example, Yi Jing, the female commentator on China TV's official sports channel, was originally a special Women's Doubles player and successfully won the women's doubles World Champion.
And now Bay Island's head coach Jiang Peirong, when he was a player, the reason why he was able to win the mixed doubles World Champion with a Chinese table tennis female player was because the Chinese table tennis female player was a professional mixed doubles player. Jiang Peirong's victory was a typical example of being led away by a big boss.
Huaping has the deepest bench in the world and countless reserve talents. However, because there are too many masters, those reserve talents have no chance to make a name for themselves in the international arena. For these people, specializing in doubles is actually a good way out. It can divert talents and make the best use of them. It can also allow the main force of Huaping to focus on singles without being distracted.
But as soon as the new rules of International Table Tennis Federation came out, this road was blocked. Obviously there are a lot of people in Huaping who want to compete, but they want the main players who already have heavy competition tasks to distract themselves from practicing doubles.
This rule is actually unreasonable. It is a typical case of looking for trouble. But there is no way, because all non-Chinese associations raised their hands to support, so Huaping can only admit it with pinched noses. After all, Huaping has been used to International Table Tennis Federation's targeting over the years.
It's actually a bit frustrating to talk about these things. Chinese Sports has been walking on a difficult road. It's okay to be bullied on weak projects, but it's really a bit resentful to be bullied on strong projects.
In this regard, you only need to think about it from another angle and you can feel at ease: What can't kill me will only make me stronger.
It is precisely because Huaping has gone through many turmoils such as "changing the serving rules", "changing the caliber of table tennis balls", "changing table tennis materials", "changing the 21-point system to the 11-point system", etc., that it is now becoming more and more courageous, and has become what it is now, no matter how you target me, it will never fall.
If you have been poisoned too much, you will become invulnerable to all poisons, and your whole body will have no flaws.
Ok, let's stop talking and get back to the business.
The four final players selected by women's table tennis are: veteran Jin Ling, veteran Liu Wen, Xiaohua Shen Sha, and Xiaohua Tang Yuanyuan.
Among them, Jin Ling and Liu Wen were chosen based on their strength. They deserved to be selected.
The selection of Shen Sha actually went through a very difficult civil war, because in the team's comprehensive evaluation, her and Wang Yu's scores were almost exactly the same, so in the end even Cai Guodong had no choice but to temporarily add a civil war between them, whoever wins will go.
In the end, Shen Sha defeated Wang Yu with an extremely difficult score of 4:3 and got this spot.
As for Tang Yuanyuan, it was entirely fate. If she wanted to play in the mixed doubles, according to the regulations, she had to be one of the singles players, so she got the last spot.
Of course, she does not need to actually participate in singles, because the rules of Olympic Games are 3+1 mode, with three main players and one substitute. As long as the main players do not have any accidents, the substitutes do not need to appear. However, accidents are difficult to happen in table tennis, so over the years, this substitute quota has come to the world on Olympic Games.
It was also at this time that Tang Yuanyuan felt the goodness of Wang Chao even more. After all, she witnessed the fierce competition between Wang Yu and Shen Sha. She also knew that Wang Yu, who was the loser, cried all night that night, and her eyes were swollen when she woke up the next day.
Such a hard-won spot fell to him by accident.
She even felt that Wang Yu looked at her in a strange way, and she didn't know whether it was envy or jealousy, so for the sake of harmony within the team, she took the initiative to treat Wang Yu to a sumptuous supper that day.
For the men's team, the quotas are relatively clear. The main players are Sun Tianlong, Luo Jiu and Wang Chao. No one expected that the substitute players were neither Bai Feng nor Lin Li, but the 15-year-old Fan Xiaodong.
So, despite the commotion among the young players on the women's team, in the end the youngest player is still from the men's table tennis team.
You have to ask why Lin Li and Bai Feng have no complaints?
That's because, essentially, Bai Feng and Lin Li's specific expectations for Olympic Games are actually different from those of the women's team.
For the young players of the women's team, "participating in Olympic Games" is an honor enough in itself, so they don't think about how well they can do in Olympic Games, but first get the spot.
But Lin Li went to Olympic Games four years ago. At that time, Luo Jiu was still falling, and Bai Feng had not yet risen, so Lin Li was a regular player. He went with Sun Tianlong and Xiao Fei. He was not interested in the matter of "participating in Olympic Games". He was only interested in the matter of "getting the card for Olympic Games".
Now that the situation of the Chinese Table Tennis Men's Team has become clear, Lin Li knows that he is no match for Sun Tianlong, Wang Chao and Luo Jiu. The moment he realizes this, his obsession with Olympic Games has dissipated.
As for Bai Feng, he has never participated in Olympic Games, but he has an extremely stubborn and unruly side in his character, even though he was defeated time and time again by Wang Chao, and even recently he was defeated by Hook and Wu Li were defeated, but he still has high aspirations. In his opinion, if he wants to participate in Olympic Games, then the goal can only be the championship. He is also repulsive to "participating in Olympic Games gold plating".
"Since I am not your opponent this year, then I will not compete at all. I will continue to train hard. I am only 25 years old. I can still play in four years. By then I will reach the top in one step and win the championship directly." - This is the true thought of Bai Feng.
So Fan Xiaodong is actually the same as Tang Yuanyuan. He is also a lucky guy who was hit on the head by a pie. He did not fight for it or had any hope, but in the end he got the spot inexplicably. Although he was only a substitute, it was also a good thing to be able to travel at public expense to expand his knowledge.
In fact, when Huaping announced the roster, Qin Huachang had a very complicated mood.
When Old Qin was in power, he tried every possible means to plot against Wang Chao, even going against his conscience and being scolded by He Jingping, just to win a slim chance for Fan Xiaodong. But in the end, it all came to nothing, which is equivalent to giving Wang Chao a mixed doubles spot in vain.
As a result, when he left Huaping, relaxed his heart, and wanted nothing more, the quota fell from the sky inexplicably.
This made him a little funny and self-deprecating. He felt more and more that during those years when he was a coach, had he been a little too careless?
Ok, after talking about singles, let's talk about doubles.
In fact, the smaller the competition, the more free registration is allowed, while the larger the competition, the more tightly the quota is limited.
On the one hand, this is to streamline the schedule to avoid bloat. On the other hand, it is still to restrict Huaping.
For example, Men's Doubles and Women's Doubles, if there is no restriction on registration, do you believe that Huaping will come up with seven or eight world-class combinations for you in minutes?
After all, the thickness of the bench is there.
Therefore, in order to create more contingency and allow more accidents to occur in Huaping, Olympic Games has stipulated since many years ago that each association can only have one pair of players in the doubles event.
Therefore, this time Olympic Games and Men's Doubles can only be paired with Sun Tianlong and Luo Jiu to form the "Snail" combination.
Sun Tianlong's best partner is naturally Xiao Fei, but Xiao Fei does not participate in singles and actively refuses to be a substitute in singles, so Sun Tianlong can only settle for the second best.
He has also considered Wang Chao, but Wang Chao already has Men's Singles and mixed doubles. His current physical strength, playing two doubles has made Cai Guodong a little worried. It is absolutely impossible for him to play three.
As for Women's Doubles, many people were surprised because it was not the veteran combination of Jin Ling and Liu Wen, but the new and old combination of Liu Wen and Shen Sha.
World number one's Grand Slam player Jin Ling took the initiative to give up Women's Doubles because she has been called "most waterlogged Grand Slam in history" by the outside world, and her true strength does not have an absolute advantage in women's table tennis, so this time she will focus on singles.
Although she does not expect to learn Dragon Team and challenge Double Grand Slam, she also hopes to win two consecutive championships with Olympic Games Women's Singles and tie the record of a certain senior in women's table tennis.
Therefore, Huaping's closed special training at Olympic Village currently has only two top priorities.
First, consolidate the advantageous situation of mixed doubles.
Second, practice Men's Doubles and Women's Doubles.
In fact, the pressure is still very high.
After all, Sun Tianlong and Luo Jiu have not been paired before, and Shen Sha and Liu Wen have not been paired before.
Fortunately, the individual combat effectiveness of these two pairs is strong enough, and judging from the technical and tactical characteristics of each, they also meet the pairing standards.
Sun Tianlong and Luo Jiu have overflowing ball control abilities, but their styles are completely different, so there is no problem of "skill waste" in ball control. On the contrary, Sun Tianlong's backhand lacks There is no kill board, but the backhand bounce of Luo Jiu is more powerful than the forehand, so when they are paired together, in a sense, Luo Jiu can be used as a left hand in the future. In this case, one left and one right will become a perfect match for doubles.
As for Liu Wen and Shen Sha, they are more typical. Liu Wen has always been an absolute speed player. She has the fastest ball speed and rhythm, but she has always been lacking in power and spin, while Shen Sha has a forehand kill board that is comparable to that of male players. When they match up, Liu Wen can completely regard Shen Sha as his old partner Xiao Fei, and the cooperation mode is almost the same.
So, have you noticed a problem here? Xiao Fei, who did not come to Mexico City, was cueed twice in a row...
It can only be said that the world-recognized number one in doubles is so good. If you cooperate with male players, you will be the world number one Men's Doubles. If you cooperate with female players, you will be the world number one in mixed doubles. Of course, the latter world number one has been snatched away by a cheating dog.
At this moment, Wang Chao, who had been vaguely worried about something, finally felt relieved.
He remembered clearly that in his previous life, it was the year when mixed doubles entered the Olympics, and Olympic Games singles match's quota was cut from three to two by Olympic Committee.
He has been thinking these days, what should he do if something like this happens to Olympic Committee this time?
He actually had the idea of quitting voluntarily. After all, he had already snatched away his senior brother's World Table Tennis Championships championship, and had sworn not to compete with Sun Tianlong on the battlefield.
So, delaying the realization of Grand Slam's dream for four years doesn't seem completely unacceptable?
After having such a thought, Wang Chao suddenly realized that it might not be until this moment that he finally got rid of the influence of his previous life experience on him.
After crossing over, he has been very anxious. He worked very hard and raced against time to complete Grand Slam in the shortest time. What he wanted was naturally not an empty record of "fastest Grand Slam".
He was just afraid all the time, but he didn't dare to think about it because according to Murphy's law, the more he worried about something, the more likely it would happen.
He was afraid that when he opened his eyes one day, he would find that it was just a dream and that he did not have such a perfect and healthy body.
He was afraid that something would happen to him during a game or practice one day, just like in his previous life, when he suffered a comminuted fracture of his wrist and was forced to give up the sport he loved.
After seeing Fan Pingnan who accidentally broke both legs last year, this vague fear became even worse, and it also made him go faster and faster and make more calculations on the road to compete for an Olympic spot.
Of course he couldn't be wrong.
Including defeating senior brother Luo Jiu on World Table Tennis Championships and personally crushing Luo Jiu's seven-year obsession, naturally it cannot be wrong.
After all, athletes have to fight with all their strength on the court.
But after all, he still felt that he was a bit unhuman.
However, he still didn't want to let go of any chance to win the championship, because he was really a little scared.
"Maybe it's my destiny not to be able to realize my dreams?"
"Perhaps my path in this life will still be to coach Huaping?"
"If I really meet Brother Long in the Olympic finals, what should I do if Brother Long doesn't let me abstain?"
"If I lose to him, what's the point of all my hard work this year?"
"But if I defeat him... wouldn't I crush Brother Long's dream once again after crushing my senior brother's dream?"
"It's impossible for both of them to survive until the next Olympic Games..."
"But I still have at least ten years, so why should I be in such a hurry?"
"Is it because of the fear that lurks in my heart?"
"Am I being too selfish?"
Wang Chao is a very, very smart person. The smarter the person, the more emotionally sensitive he is, and the more afraid he is to dig out some deep and subtle things in himself. He plots against others every day, but rarely examines himself, because he is afraid of digging out some dark sides that he himself cannot accept, just as Mr. Lu Xun said, "Squeezing out the little things under the leather robe."
After arriving in Mexico, entering Olympic Village, and confirming the entire schedule late at night, he could finally calm down and think about some illusory things about life and dreams.
He realized that he was gradually integrating into this world, and the shadow of his previous life was fading from him.
When he first arrived, he was distant and indifferent, but now he is sincere and integrated.
He used to be a bystander in this world, but now he has become the authoritative person in this world.
He has been able to naturally accept the cheap mother Wang Mei. On her wedding day, he can naturally call Tony teacher daddy. He has real admiration for the teacher He Jingping and sincere friendship for the senior brother Luo Jiu.
He remembered that there was a dragon in Huaping in his previous life, but the Sun Tianlong he came into contact with was still an independent individual of flesh and blood. He might have similarities with the person in his previous life, but after all, he was a completely different person.
Even though Old Qin was plotting against him every day, he couldn't help but smile when he thought about it and felt a little warm.
It was a calm night, there were stars outside the window, and the Mexico City night was cool and quiet. Lying in bed, I could occasionally hear some undisciplined foreign athletes laughing loudly in the distance, maybe drinking wine and eating barbecue.
No one knew that Wang Chao reached peace with himself that night and truly calmed down from the bottom of his heart.
He is no longer in a hurry.
In other words, he no longer values victory or defeat so much.
From now on, he will still work hard to play every game well and try his best to win. This is the quality of a professional athlete, but he knows that even if he loses now, he should accept it calmly.
Even if you lose not to Luo Jiu and Sun Tianlong, but to Hook, Lin Zijun, Pike, Morad, Mizutori Hato, those insignificant people are actually not a big deal, right?
"I don't want to become Old Qin, worrying about everything and eventually getting sick from exhaustion." Wang Chao finally thought, "This world is real, so I just need to live a real life."
Wang Chao admitted this world.
So this is also his reconciliation with the world.
I just felt sorry for Old Qin. In the middle of the night, I was suddenly cueed by the mysterious power. I sneezed a few times, got up, drank two cold medicines, and murmured, "It's not winter yet..."
(Sorry, today is just one chapter. By the way, let me explain something to you. Recently, many readers have left messages saying that I won't be able to finish writing in June, and they speculate that I will unfinish it or something.
I want to say that I only estimated that it would end in June, and I did not mean to give a mandatory time node. In fact, I have always followed the plot nodes. I will write the content I planned when I put it on the shelves according to the usual rhythm to ensure quality, and will not deliberately speed up or slow down.
So, don't worry, it won't be unfinished. After all, I am very emotional about what I wrote. The reason why I predicted the ending has nothing to do with the performance of the book. It is purely because the plot has developed to this point, and it is naturally time to end.
If it were written further, the protagonist would already be invincible, and the whole world would know that he was invincible. This would make it impossible to write the plot of pretending to be a pig and eating the tiger. If it were delayed any longer, it would be watering down, right?
Of course, for the sake of the completeness of the characters and the story, there will be a plot after Olympic Games, in which the protagonist defeats the whole world. It should be very interesting. So, please don't start reading Olympic Games after reading it. You have to chase, chase, chase, chase!
Finally, okay, I admit that I was wrong. I really can't finish this book in June. I guess it will take a while to finish in July.)
Thanks to "Rolling Little River" for the 100 coin reward.