Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 5th issue: from the expansion of troops to the assistance of science and technology — the year of Beijing Winter Olympics preparation
Xinhua news agency reporters Wei Hua, Ji Ye and Xiao Yazhuo
are located in Beijing Shougang Park, in the cold water jug training hall of the national winter training center transformed from clean coal workshop, after a series of selections, 3 men’s teams and 3 women’s teams were selected into the National Cold water jug training team, and 10 pairs of mixed pairs were shortlisted in the national team training camp.
Seeing the hot training scene in front of us, cold water jug badxin, who helped Chinese men achieve the best record in history at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, said with emotion: “Before (Winter Olympics) the cycle usually focuses on one team. Now (male and female teams each) the three teams go hand in hand, resulting in healthy competition. I feel very happy to see such good platform resources shared with everyone.”
Badxin’s words are also a microcosm of China’s preparations for the Winter Olympics: from 2018 to 2021, according to the working rhythm of “expanding the surface, fixing the point, strengthening the soldiers and sprinting, the Chinese Ice snowman is working hard to achieve the goal of” participating in the whole project “step by step.
According to the preparation strategy of Beijing Winter Olympics, the task of 2018 is to expand the surface-that is, to form a new pattern with different priorities, characteristics and comprehensive development on ice and snow. On the occasion of the third anniversary of the countdown to the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, nearly 4,000 people from 31 national training teams were participating in the preparations for the Winter Olympics, and the number of people was about 7 times higher than that of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
The goal of the Chinese delegation at the Beijing Winter Olympics is to “participate in the whole project” and achieve a leap-forward improvement in competitive level and performance. The head of the Winter Sports Management Center of the State General Administration of Sports said that “all-project participation” is a basic requirement, but it is also a “huge challenge”.
According to statistics, from the participation rate of the hosts of the 11th Winter Olympics since China participated in the Winter Olympics for the first time in 1980, it can be seen that only the United States hosted the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics (38 small items) and the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics (78 small items) achieved the participation of the whole project. However, before the success of the Winter Olympics, one third of the small events of the Winter Olympics in our country were not even carried out.
According to the regulations of international organizations of Ice and Snow projects on the qualification of Winter Olympics, 61 of the 109 small items of Beijing Winter Olympics have direct qualification, the remaining 48 need to compete for qualifications by points or rankings.
Looking back at the preparations for the Winter Olympics in the past year, the head of the winter transportation center said: “The preparations for this year are very effective and targeted. Our foundation is weak, and now there are more projects (Winter Olympics), which makes it very difficult to participate in the whole project. However, as long as we fully mobilize the enthusiasm and initiative of all parties and do everything possible, it is not impossible to achieve this goal.”
The person in charge of the winter transportation center said that the realization of “all-project participation” objectively requires support from all aspects including international organizations, but more importantly, subjective efforts. “China’s ice and snow projects are completely backward, long-term backward and overall functional backward. Where are the talents to complete the task of Beijing Winter Olympics? This is our pain point and weakness.”
Aiming at the problem of shortage of talents, the winter transportation center started the selection work very early, among which the very important way is cross-border cross-item selection. As for “cross-border”, the head of the winter transportation center said: “Many people only pay more attention to” cross-border “, but they do not see the role of selecting materials.”
“Expanding the surface is to do a good job in selecting materials. We started cross-border and cross-item selecting materials very early, which is also a very important work for us in 2018. We selected athletes with high-level sports skills and physical qualities, and after professional training, let them quickly Master ice and snow skills.” The head of the winter transportation center said.
According to the introduction, from 2017 till now, the winter transportation center of the State General Administration of Sports and related project centers and associations have continuously plus-sized the selection of ice and snow projects. There are athletes from track and field, gymnastics, volleyball, martial arts, weightlifting, skills, trampoline, ground throwing, hockey, surfing, rowing, kayaking and other events, as well as students from Beijing Dance Academy and Henan Tagou Martial school, A total of more than 20000 people, including actors from the acrobatic troupe in Puyang, Henan province, participated in the selection, and finally selected more than 1200 people from the national training team of various ice and snow projects at all levels.
The person in charge of the winter transportation center stressed that the selection of materials should pay attention to the scientific nature, not the large scale. “It is to really select those talented athletes. One is to select according to the champion model, the other is to hire a team of foreign experts to participate, and the other is to test with the help of scientific and technological equipment, which helps to select materials in all aspects.”
Zhao Hongbo, the head coach of the Chinese figure skating team, said that the Chinese flower skating team has done a lot of work on “expanding the surface” in the past year. Next step, they plan to combine the talents selected across cross-border projects with the players with the foundation of ICE training, hoping that the two can improve each other.
In the preparation work of the new cycle, how to improve the competitive level of athletes, especially how to master the ice and snow skills as soon as possible through cross-border and cross-entry? The person in charge of the winter transportation center said that the ice and snow project has its own characteristics and requires “three from one plus scientific training”.
“‘Three from One’ is the tradition of Chinese sports, which conforms to the development law of competitive sports itself. For us at this stage, we need to emphasize scientific training at the same time.” The head of the winter transportation center said.
According to Xu Jincheng, deputy director of the science and technology work department of the winter Transportation Center, in the past year, the winter transportation center has carried out science and technology assistance and security work from various aspects. For example, carry out training monitoring, build a comprehensive medical and rehabilitation security service system for the national team, build a comprehensive sports nutrition security system, equip a psychological counseling service security team, etc.
Xu Jincheng said that in 2018, the Ministry of Science and Technology formulated the “champion model” to provide reference basis for national selection and training. “On this basis, we are working with the team of foreign experts to develop key performance indicators (KPI) for the growth and winning ways of athletes in different ice and snow projects.”
The champion model is being applied by figure skating teams. Zhao Hongbo said that through the “heart rate monitor strap” and other scientific and technological equipment worn by the team members, the scientific research team can timely grasp the data of athletes’ physical function, training intensity, and the amount and degree of stimulation. When an athlete reaches the best state in a certain competition, the coaching team will summarize his or her data model in the recent period, and copy such “champion model” in future training.
Badxin is deeply touched by the training changes in the new cycle. “Nowadays, no matter from the site, medical treatment or food and accommodation, all aspects of security are very good.” He said.
For the nutrition restaurant designed by the winter Transportation Center, Wu Dajing, the champion of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, is also full of praise: “The opening of the nutrition restaurant makes our recipes more perfect and scientific.”
International cooperation in ice and snow projects is also gradually warming up. In the “China-Finland winter sports year”, The Winter transportation center cooperated with the Finland Wakati Olympic Sports Center, and several national training teams trained here, learn from Finland in team training concepts and training methods. Not only Finland, the steel frame snowmobile training team and snowmobile training team received local support in Germany and Austria respectively, 49 athletes from the cross-border cross-project group of alpine skiing national training team are receiving four-month snow training in Europe……
With the expansion of the team scale and the improvement of training methods, the Chinese Legion reported frequently in this ice and snow season that has already begun. In addition to winning the world record by famous generals like Wu Dajing in the short track speed skating World Cup in Salt Lake City, USA, some short board projects such as biathlon and ski jumping have also made breakthroughs and progress to varying degrees.
At the end of 2018, in the United States race of the ski jumping International snow United Cup, the Chinese men’s team won the qualification to advance to the Intercontinental Cup for the first time since the team was established; geng Wenqiang, a Chinese steel-framed snowmobile athlete, won the championship in the first race of the North American Cup held in November, 2018 at the University of California, this is the first time that China’s steel snowmobile national training team has won the gold medal in a competition organized by the international steel Snowmobile Federation since it was built in 2015.
In the new training cycle, the Winter Sports Management Center has further strengthened patriotism and collectivism education. National training teams have actively carried out the theme education activities of “paying tribute to the national flag, take the ceremony of raising the national flag as an important measure to strengthen the ideological and political education and cultural construction of the sports team, and effectively improve the team members’ sense of mission, responsibility and honor to win honor for the country.