China’s short track speed skating team is a “group on the ice” in China sports.
At present, the China sports delegation has won 22 gold medals in the Winter Olympics, among which 12 gold medals are from short track speed skating.
Recently, China’s short track speed skating team has been busy running around the major stadiums.
They first participated in two World Cup races in Montreal, Canada, and won 4 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze. Then he took part in the four continents championship in Laval, Canada, and won 1 silver and 1 bronze.
Next, the Chinese short track speed skating team will participate in the third race of the 2023/2024 World Cup in Beijing from December 8 to 10.
After the Beijing Winter Olympics, many changes have taken place in China’s short track speed skating team.
The most important change occurred in the position of head coach. Kim Shantai, a Korean who had coached in China for many years, did not renew his contract, and Zhang Jing, a China who had coached in Hungary for many years, took office.
Now Zhang Jing has been coaching the China team for more than a year. What are your expectations for her short track speed skating team?
Hungarian meritorious coach
Zhang Jing, born in Changchun, Jilin Province on October 18th, 1973, participated in the 1993 World Championships and the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway as an athlete, and served as the coach of the Jilin short track speed skating team after retiring.
In the past, when she was in China, whether as an athlete or a coach, Zhang Jing’s achievements were far less than those of the other two short track speed skaters-Li Yan and Wang Meng.
A major turning point in Zhang Jing’s life was to go to Hungary to teach.
In 2011, Hungarian Skating Association made a request to China Skating Association, hoping to introduce Zhang Jing.
In February 2012, Zhang Jing went to Hungary and began to coach the Hungarian short track speed skating team.
When Zhang Jing was a coach in Jilin, she had coached Liu Shaolin and Liu Shaoang. The reason why the Hungarian Skating Association invited Zhang Jing to coach was also closely related to the “bridge” of the Liu brothers.
Zhang Jing brought advanced ideas to the Hungarian short track speed skating team, and with the Liu brothers as the core, she improved the level of Hungarian short track speed skating step by step.
In 2014, Zhang Jing led the Hungarian team to win 1 silver and 2 bronze at the World Youth Short Track Speed Skating Championships.
In 2015, Zhang Jing led the Hungarian team to win the men’s 5000-meter relay championship at the Shanghai World Cup in Short Track Speed Skating.
In 2016, Zhang Jing led the Hungarian team to win 1 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze at the Short Track Speed Skating World Championships.
In the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in 2018, the Hungarian team won the gold medal in the men’s 5000-meter relay of short track speed skating, which was the first short track speed skating gold medal in the history of Hungary.
Zhang Jing, Liu Shaolin and Liu Shaoang have all become heroes in Hungarian sports history.
In recognition of Zhang Jing’s important contribution to Hungarian short track speed skating, the Hungarian government held a grand celebration ceremony in the Parliament Building. Zhang Jing was awarded the “Hungarian Officer’s Cross Medal of Merit (literary grade)”, and Zhang Jing became the first person in Chinese mainland to receive this honor.
In the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the Hungarian short track speed skating team coached by Zhang Jing won 1 gold and 2 bronze again.
From 2012 to 2022, Zhang Jing, together with her disciples Liu Shaolin and Liu Shaoang, promoted Hungarian short track speed skating from a blank sheet of paper to a world-class level.
People are in other places, and their hearts are in China.
Zhang Jing achieved great success in Hungary, where she also received high courtesy.
However, in Zhang Jing’s mind, she has always been a coach in China. Even if she teaches in a foreign country, her heart has never been separated from her motherland.
She can resign angrily for an inappropriate remark made by a player, and once she gets the opportunity to coach the China national team, she will return to China without hesitation.
On December 3, 2019, when Zhang Jing led the Hungarian team to Shanghai, she asked the Hungarian National Skating Association to apologize publicly through social media and wrote: “I, Zhang Jing, solemnly declare my resignation as the head coach of the Hungarian National Short Track Speed Skating Team.”
She resigned suddenly because a Hungarian player wrote words unfriendly to China on social media.
Zhang Jing revealed: “I really can’t accept their behavior from the heart, so I resigned.”
After the incident, after the emergency treatment of the Hungarian National Skating Association, the player was sent back to China and was banned, and also quit the Hungarian national team.
Therefore, Zhang Jing’s coaching career in Hungary has also been continued.
In the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Zhang Jing led the Hungarian team to participate. Beijing is the away game of Hungary, but it is the home of Zhang Jing.
China won two gold medals, one silver medal and one bronze medal, and Hungarian team won one gold medal and two bronze medals. The two teams she cared most about both achieved excellent results.
In an exclusive interview with reporters, Zhang Jing said that she was satisfied with the results of this Winter Olympics. During the Spring Festival, she participated in the Winter Olympics at home and felt like going home for the holidays.
Referring to the future, Zhang Jing said at that time that she was still planning and hoped to have a new environment.
Returning to China to teach, is widely expected.
Zhang Jing’s “Future Plan” was announced in the second half of 2022.
In July, 2022, Zhang Jing served as the general consultant of China Short Track Speed Skating National Training Camp.
In September 2022, Zhang Jing became the head coach of China’s short track speed skating team.
Zhang Jing’s coaching of the China team should be a popular result.
Looking back on the past winter Olympic cycle, although the performance of Chinese short track speed skating team is excellent, it has also exposed the problem of green and yellow.
China won two gold medals in the Beijing Winter Olympics, one in the relay event and one in the individual event.
Ren Ziwei was the only one who won the gold medal in the individual event, while veterans like Wu Dajing and Fan Kexin still played the main role in the relay event.
What is more worrying is that the China team is mainly responsible for slipping out of the advantage in the relay race.
Younger athletes like Li Wenlong, Zhang Yuting and Qu Chunyu, their main task in the relay race is not to be thrown off as much as possible.
It’s not that the previous coach was not good enough, but the Chinese short track speed skating team needs to be changed. Zhang Jing, who has coached in Hungary for many years and trained many Olympic champions, is the best candidate to coach the China team.
In the 2022/2023 season, Zhang Jing hurried onto the field with Lin Xiaoao and other newcomers when many Olympic champions of China team had not returned to the team and the Liu brothers had not joined.
In the Salt Lake City Station of the Short Track Speed Skating World Cup, the China team composed of Li Wenlong, Wang Xinran, Zhang Chutong and Zhong Yuchen won the gold medal in the men’s and women’s mixed 2000-meter relay, which was a big surprise.
This is Zhang Jing’s first champion after coaching the Chinese short track speed skating team, and it can also be regarded as the first champion after the Chinese short track speed skating team started again.
What is even more gratifying is that the four players who won this gold medal are not meritorious players in the “last era”.
At that time, in the first race, China’s record was poor, but Zhang Jing still chose to trust the young players and made a return.
At present, China’s short track speed skating team is stronger than Ma Zhuang’s. While Ren Ziwei and other Olympic champions have not returned to the competition, we already have highly competitive players such as Lin Xiaoao, Liu Shaolin, Liu Shaoang, Li Wenlong and Zhang Chutong.
I believe that they will bring us more surprises in the Beijing race in the near future and other competitions in the future!