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The Olympic spirit travels beyond national boundaries
By Lu Yan  ·  2021-08-19  ·   Source: NO.33 AUGUST 19, 2021
(Left) Su Bingtian (second right) of China competes during the Men's 100m Semifinal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, on August 1 Sun Yiwen of China celebrates with her coach Hughes Obry after winning the Women's Épée Individual Final at the Olympic Games on July 24 (XINHUA)

Su Bingtian is a name that glued many Chinese to their televisions for the Olympic Summer Games Tokyo 2020. The 31-year-old sprinter made history on August 1 as he became the first Chinese to qualify for an Olympic Men's 100m Final, after setting the new Asian record of 9.83 seconds in the semifinal. He finished sixth with 9.98 seconds in the final.

"Su, come on, man. We did it!" Randy Huntington, Su's American coach, said after the race in an interview with China Daily via video link, adding that Su gave 100 percent in the semifinal already, a tough feat to repeat in the final.

Huntington was among those foreign coaches behind the scenes working with Team China at Tokyo 2020. With their help, Chinese athletes have made progress, secured medals and broken records in traditionally Western-dominated events.

"The Olympic Games are an open arena. The flow and exchanges of foreign coaches will not only help us overcome our technical shortcomings in certain events, but, more importantly, promote sportsmanship and fairer competition," Huang Yaling, a professor at Beijing Sport University, said. "The world is getting more closely connected, and China's sports development should pool more ideas and energy."

Unsung heroes

An elite coach for over 40 years, Huntington has trained several world-class athletes like American triple jump champion William Augustus Banks III, and Mike Powell, holder of the long jump world record. Since 2013, Huntington has been working with China's track and field team. After meeting Su, Huntington knew he could have a promising future. In 2017, Huntington became Su's head coach and worked with him on his specific challenges such as a lack of confidence and how to use his strengths properly.

With Huntington's targeted coaching, the Chinese sprinter clocked 9.92 seconds in the Men's 100m Final at the Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2018, winning his first gold. "I'm proud to win honors for my country, but I do hope for more at the Olympic Games," Su said. His wish came true in the semifinals there.

When talking about Su's last two races at Tokyo 2020, Huntington believes the sprinter could have finished on the podium. "9.98 [seconds] is not exactly slow, but it wasn't under 9.90 [seconds] which I was hoping we could do," Huntington said, mentioning that the distraction from the false start of one of the finalists affected Su's performance.

On multiple occasions, Su has expressed his appreciation for Huntington, praising his coaching techniques and tactics. His words have been echoed by Wang Chunyu, a 26-year-old 800m runner who became the first Chinese athlete to reach the Olympic Women's 800m Final. She finished fifth and improved her personal best by more than two seconds.

"I am so excited. I have achieved my goal and proved Randy was right," Wang said after her race, adding that many people share a misconception that there's not much need to focus on speed training for an 800m race, whereas Huntington helped her improve her speed a lot. In the meantime, Huntington also boosted her confidence prior to the competition by saying that he felt that her speed could surpass anyone's.

Apart from Huntington, a host of other foreign coaches have given a leg-up to the Chinese Olympians. Hughes Obry, a retired French fencer and Olympic gold medalist, helped China's Sun Yiwen won the first-ever gold medal for China in the women's épée individual in Tokyo.

In 2016, Obry started coaching for the Chinese team. Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, he had to communicate with the team remotely, via WeChat work group, for quite some time. He would listen to the reports from the Chinese assistant coach on the athletes' conditions and then formulate their specific training plans accordingly. At the same time, he would have one-on-one online communication with the players to adjust their personal training sessions.

Sun Yiwen of China celebrates with her coach Hughes Obry after winning the Women's Epee Individual Final match during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, on July 24 (XINHUA)

"The most important thing is to know how they feel in their hearts and what they think in their heads," Obry said. "Also, I needed to train the Chinese coaches so that they could train the fencers independently."

In the eyes of Sun, Obry is very humorous in life but serious in training. After the fencing final on July 24, both Sun's and Obry's names climbed to the top of the most searched hashtags list on Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform. A video showing Obry shouting and running around the stadium, carrying Sun on his shoulder after her victory, soon went viral. Netizens showed their respect and affection for the foreign coach.

Obry's contract with the Chinese team originally would have expired in August 2020. But as Tokyo 2020 was postponed by one year, he signed a one-year extension. "I really hope Team China can continue to sign such responsible, capable and enthusiastic coaches. I am impressed with his passion for the sport," Hu Simeng, a Chinese netizen, told Beijing Review.

At Tokyo 2020, there were 30 foreign coaches from 19 countries who worked together with Chinese athletes like Huntington and Obry eyeing gold in 17 disciplines including rowing, kayaking, water polo and rugby, according to official statistics.

Beauty of sports

As foreign coaches are training Chinese athletes, some China-born athletes and coaches also share their athletic expertise with people in other parts of the world. Ni Xialian, a 58-year-old member of Luxembourg's national sports team and the eldest Olympic table tennis player in history, has gone viral on Chinese social media. The former member of China's national team, who later emigrated to Luxembourg, has competed in the Olympic Games five times since 2000.

Although she lost her battle against Shin Yubin from the Republic of Korea in the first round, Ni still gained the admiration from fans around the world. "There are no boundaries in sports," Ni said in an interview with Xinmin Evening News. "I just feel honored to be competing in the Olympics."

Like Ni, there are many Chinese athletes who competed for the teams of different countries in sports like table tennis, badminton, swimming, as well as diving. Taking the U.S. delegation for example, all four badminton players are Chinese American; four of the six table tennis players are of Chinese American descent. In the Canadian delegation that participated in all badminton events for the first time, six out of eight players are Chinese Canadian.

Eden Cheng, a 19-year-old diver on Team Great Britain, said in an interview with Global Times that she had learned a great deal from her coach Chen Lin, who won China's first ever diving world title at the Fifth FINA World Championships in Madrid back in 1986.

"I am very lucky to have a coach like her, as she unreservedly passes on her knowledge to me," Cheng said. "She maintains a traditional Chinese coaching style. I hope I can take in all of these traditional Chinese aspects and put them to full use."

The Olympic Games manage to get "the entire world together in one peaceful competition, to have athletes in one country, in one city, in one Olympic village, competing against each other but living together because they are under the same rules," International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said at a press conference.

Sportsmanship, unity and the pursuit of excellence. That is the Olympic Spirit. 

(Print Edition Title: An Open Arena) 

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

Comments to luyan@bjreview.com

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