www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

OLYMPICS / Your Story

Precision makes perfect
By Mary Nicole Nazzaro
Sohu.com
Updated: 2008-08-13 09:58

 

(The author, features writer for Sports Illustrated's Chinese-language edition published in Beijing)

You have to admire the handwork that's gone into some of China's gold-medal performances in Beijing. China has put up winning margins so large in diving and gymnastics that the rest of the field was left to compete for silver and bronze.

On Sunday, Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia had the three-meter springboard synchronized event locked up after three of five rounds. The women's ten-meter synchro event was a clinic; Wang Xin and Chen Ruolin took gold with a gargantuan margin of victory (31.68 points). That came on the heels of China's men's gymnastics team, which won team gold with such a dominant performance, the point spread between first and second place (286.125 to 278.875) was more than between second and eighth (272.875).

When I think of the stunning accuracy of the moves of Guo Jingjing, or the consistency of Yang Wei, or the perfect landings that Xiao Qin, Li Xiaopeng, and the rest of the Chinese men displayed in impossibly difficult routines on Tuesday, I remember my visit to the Tsinghua University Natatorium in the summer of 2006.

On that trip I met Yu Fen, the legendary diving coach who squired Fu Mingxia to gold-medal glory in Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney (the last after Fu had begun university studies).

On the day we met, Coach Yu was training her diving club students. The athletes I saw ranged in age from around six to eleven or twelve – young kids with potential, nobody who had yet reached anything close to world-class range.

  Guo Jingjing (L) and Wu Minxia hold their gold medals during the medal ceremony for the women's 3 meter springboard synchronised diving final at the National Aquatics Center in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on August 11, 2008. [Agencies]

I watched and admired the way her youngest athletes – who, by the way, are required to do well in school to stay in the club, a model that's being used more and more in China today – would work on the most basic fundamentals of diving.

The turned-in toes, the hand position, the straightness of the body. The attention to the most basic skill. Six-year-old divers at the Tsinghua Natatorium aren't allowed to dive in any way. All they are allowed to do is jump feet-first into the water, feet in that perfect position, arms stretched overhead. Diving head-first comes later.

Look very closely at Guo Jingjing and the rest of China's spectacular diving team, and you'll see that very foot position, that very hand position. The first thing you learn is how to enter the water. Fundamentals. Precision. They're good when they're Olympians because they learn good habits when they're six.

The training process to create that precision is sometimes mind-numbing. The Chinese system can seem rote and boring, but the point is to create muscle memory that can compete in the insane pressure of an Olympic final.

It reminds me of how I learned Chinese eight years ago at Beijing Normal University. Foreign students studying Chinese can expect to write hours of characters, over and over again, locking in the stroke order so that every character can eventually be recognized with a single glance. Writing "ting-xie" ("listen and write" quizzes), the Chinese equivalent of a spelling test, tests the skill of remembering characters, many of which are exact homonyms, so context is everything. It made my brain hurt.

Learning Mandarin was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But when I think of those ting-xie, the discipline, the dedication required to learn Chinese, I think back to Yu Fen and the turned-in feet and perfect hand positions of the six-year-olds who weren't allowed to do anything except jump feet-first into the water.

Yu Fen's innovation in coaching is that she keeps diving interesting for her athletes while still stressing the importance of fundamental skills. She's also a driving force in the movement to move away from a sports education system that offers "education" in name only.

These last few days, watching landings stick at National Indoor Stadium and no-splash entries at the Water Cube courtesy of Team China, I've thought back to that day at Tsinghua and once again admired the discipline and years of dedication it takes to get that good. The dedication can be applied to any task. The result is our pleasure to watch and admire during these Olympic Games.

http://aoyunpl2.blog.sohu.com/97116716.html

Comments of the article(total ) Print This Article E-mail
RELATED STORIES
主站蜘蛛池模板: 久久最新免费视频 | 1级黄色毛片 | 精品久久久久久亚洲 | 国产一区二区三区日韩 | 欧美综合视频在线观看 | 欧美性色一级在线观看 | 国产99高清一区二区 | 亚洲激情 欧美 | 欧美一级毛片黄 | 一级aaa级毛片午夜在线播放 | 亚洲国产精品综合久久20 | 久久国产精品1区2区3区网页 | 国产成人精品男人免费 | 理论片黄色 | 国产或人精品日本亚洲77美色 | 欧美一级一片 | 久久国产精品视频 | 国产精品国产精品 | 国产91精品久久久久久久 | 草久免费视频 | 扒开两腿猛进入爽爽视频 | 国产天堂 | 一色屋成人免费精品网站 | 亚洲综合欧美综合 | 久久综合一本 | 国产高清免费影视在线观看 | 欧美aaaaa一级毛片在线 | 久草视频在线免费看 | 久草com | 国产在线爱做人成小视频 | 67194欧美成l人在线观看免费 | 国产蜜汁tv福利在线 | 午夜欧美日韩在线视频播放 | 亚州国产 | 成人综合在线视频免费观看 | 一级不卡毛片免费 | 99精品国产高清一区二区三区香蕉 | 亚洲精品国产美女在线观看 | 欧美视频一区二区三区精品 | 日本综合欧美一区二区三区 | 亚洲免费一区 |