Winter Olympic Champion Kowtows to Her Coach
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Wang Meng stormed to the gold medal and glory of women’s 500-meter short track speed skating competition at the 2010 winter olympics in Vancouver, Canada on February 18, 2010. The whole nation went wild with her. Emotional with her triumph, Wang Meng went to Chinese head coach Li Yan, equally emotional and waving at the ring side. After the two had a high-five, Wang Meng unexpectedly got down her knees on the ice and kowtowed to her coach before she jumped up and embraced the coach. In the ringside interview with CCTV shortly afterwards, Wang Meng went out of her way to mention her kowtow to her coach.
The relationship between Wang Meng and her coach Li Yan is intimate enough to be daughter and stepmother. In fact, the young female skaters on the Chinese team all regard Li Yan as their stepmother.
However, the win-win tie did not exist in May, 2006 when Li Yan came to head-coach the team. Li Yan is from Heilongjiang Province and used to be one of the world’s best short track skaters. She won a gold medal for women’s 1,000 meter short track in 1988 and two bronze medals in two other events in 1988 Winter Olympic Games. But at that time, they were merely demonstration events at the Olympic Games. After she retired, Li Yan became a coach. Her first overseas assignment was to train short track skaters of Slovakia. She did a brilliant job.
Li Yan began coaching the American team in 2003. In the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, American athlete Apolo Anton Ohno beat South Korean rival Ahn Hyun-Soo, winning the men's 500m short track speed skating gold medal, which was America's first and only Olympic gold medal in short track speed skating.
Wang Meng was born in 1985 in Qitaihe City, Heilongjiang Province. She grew up to be a wizard skater. At 17 she joined the national team. In 2006, the 21-year-old won the women’s 500m short track speed skating gold medal. Wang also won a silver and bronze medal in the 2006 Olympic Games.
Wang and Li are both straightforward and outspoken women. Li saw great potentials in Wang and saw her defects. She was frank with Wang’s shortcomings. Wang was also candid with her opinions. In January, 2007, Wang got only a bronze medal in the Asian Winter Games. The frustrated Olympic gold medalist took it out on Li Yan and made some bitter complaints in a post-game media interview. Wang Meng withdrew her remarks later and apologized in writing. The Winter Sports Management Center decided not to let her compete at the 2007 short track world championship and removed her from the national team.
Back on the provincial team, Wang Meng had time to contemplate what had happened. She realized that the gold medal at Turin Olympic Games was partially her good luck, for she won by a very narrow margin. The winning margin was so small that she knew she needed to improve rapidly or her career as a short track skater would come to nothing. Now she saw her head coach’s outspoken opinions in a new light. She did have shortcomings as perceived and frankly pointed out by Li Yan and these shortcomings were indeed obstacles for her to overcome before she could skate better. She hoped to improve herself under the guidance of Li Yan, for after all, Li Yan was the coach who saw her potential and pointed the way out to improve.
Li Yan was highly concerned with the talented star pupil. She visited Wang Meng in Heilongjiang several times and suggested to authorities to bring her back on the national team. With recommendations of Li Yan, Wang came back. The relation between the two outspoken women began to thaw and they began to bond through a series of everyday events. They chatted and understood each other better.
The young girls came to understand their coach as a great woman dedicated to their careers and understand her sacrifice as mother and wife for her work. Her husband used to be an army skier. They knew each other in 1992 at Olympic Games and fell in love and got married three years later. After she worked as a coach for American team, her husband joined her in America. They thought they would be together forever but Li came back to China. The girls held a party for Li Yan in celebration her 40th birthday in 2008 and after the party. The girls asked Li Yan to speak with her daughter in America through Internet. The five-year-old daughter was very reluctant to call her mother. For a moment, all the girls came to realize how much Li Yan had sacrificed for her work.
Under Li Yan’s guidance, Wang Meng improved rapidly and the whole team improved. The girls grabbed 4 gold medals at the Asian Winter Games, getting even with the Korean team. In the 2007 to 2008 season, Wang Meng broke the world record three times and Zhou Yang beat her Korean rival and grabbed a 1,500m gold medal and bettered the world record. In the 2008 to 2009 season, Wang Meng broke the world record twice and the women’s team grabbed the gold medal at the world cup competitions and broke the world record.
So when Wang Meng and Li Yan hugged in celebration of the gold medal, they understood each other perfectly. The nation understood them perfectly. After all, kowtowing to one’s teacher to show one’s respect and gratitude has been a tradition for thousands of years since Confucius. Li Yan was a little bit surprised to see Wang Meng kowtowing to her. After all, she was her coach, a little bit different from the teacher in the traditional sense of the word. But as she grew up in China with a full knowledge of what this kowtow means, she accepted the respect. The whole nation understood Wang Meng’s kowtow and nobody thought it was inappropriate or outmoded.
Wang Meng’s gold medal was of great significance. It was the Chinese short track speed skating team’s first gold medal in Vancouver and it meant that China had won the gold medal in this event for three consecutive Winter Olympic Games. Wang Meng’s dominant win in the 500m final gave the team a strong push. The team won 3,000m rally and broke the world record. Wang Meng grabbed the gold medal for 1,000m and the 18-year-old Zhou Yang first crossed the finish line for the 1,500m showdown. It was the first time China bagged all the four gold medals in women’s short track competitions at any Winter Olympic Games.