The total score of the national rowing spring championship was 3 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze, and the fourth Hubei rowing ＂lane change＂ breakthrough.

Hubei Daily All-Media Reporter Shi Gong Correspondent Wu Meiling

On March 28th, the four-day 2024 National Rowing Spring Championship and the Paris Olympic Games unsuccessful trials were held in Qiandao Lake, Zhejiang Province. 47 people from Hubei rowing team competed in 9 events, and 10 boats advanced to the finals in 7 events. The men’s team has a final boat in all five events, among which four people won the prize with one oar and four people with two oars, and the two people won the silver medal with one oar; In the women’s team, except for Wang Zifeng’s combined boat, which won the gold medal in the four-person single paddle event, three boats advanced to the final and won the third, fourth and fifth respectively. Hubei team finally won 3 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze and the total score of the team was fourth.

Upgrade Olympic medals

Watch me change lanes and break through.

In the men’s quadruple sculls and women’s quadruple single sculls finals, as bronze medal winners of the Tokyo Olympic Games, Liu Zhiyu and Wang Zifeng of our province easily won gold medals with their national team teammates respectively. After the competition, both of them expressed their desire to upgrade the medal color at the Paris Olympic Games.

During this year’s winter training, Wang Zifeng, as the strongest female single oar player in China, is still making breakthroughs, while Liu Zhiyu is meeting the challenge of changing lanes-he has locked in the qualification of men’s double sculls in Paris Olympics with teammate Sean, and is challenging the qualification of men’s quadruple sculls in Paris Olympics with Sean, Yin Xudi and Adili Jiang Suritan.

The old partners will fight the Olympic sculls again. Sean and Liu Zhiyu are still facing the old rivals such as the Netherlands, France, Ireland and Croatia. "The Netherlands may have a slight advantage, and the last few pairs are basically at the same level. Whoever gets on the podium is possible." Liu Zhiyu said. While the four sculls compete, Liu Zhiyu, Yin Xudi and Adilijiang Suritan are all World Cup champions of this project. Together with the most capable Sean, they will go to the Paris Olympic Games in Lucerne, Switzerland in mid-May. "Set a small goal first and get a ticket for the China team in Lucerne!" Facing the second venture of "changing the track", 31-year-old Liu Zhiyu hopes to carve his name on the historical nodes of China Men’s Boat.

From "Want me to row" to "I want to row"

Go to "Row with me"

Every Hubei rower who fights with oars inherits the "Hubei Rowing Spirit" and shoulders the glorious mission of achieving a new breakthrough.

In this medal-winning event of Hubei team, except for men’s four-person sculls (Liu Zhiyu), women’s four-person single oars (Wang Zifeng) and men’s four-person single oars (Li Wenlei), the silver medal of men’s double single oars and the bronze medal of women’s eight-person single oars with helmsman are all attributed to Hubei team’s "bringing the new with the old" model. Sun Lu, Lin Xinyu and others won the National Games in their thirties, which triggered the internal driving force of the young players to "compete for the championship with the champion"-including the men’s eight-person single-oar helmsman event, which ranked fourth by one second. Liu Dang, a 35-year-old veteran, and his nephew, who is only 17 years old, struggled forward together, and rowing with me was far more motivating than training for a month.

Sun Lu (31 years old)/Zhang Maolin (18 years old), who had been paired for less than 30 days, were not favored by the outside world in the men’s double single oar final on March 28th, but they were ahead of the powerful Guangdong team from the beginning, ranking second only behind Henan team. After 500m, they overtook Henan to rank first, but unfortunately, their opponents overtook them in the last 200m. After the runner-up hit the line, Sun Lu hit the water with his fist in regret. "1800 meters is still in the lead, almost …" Sun Lu staged the scene of winning the championship with his partner Xia Hongyu at the Shaanxi National Games. He was annoyed that he didn’t stick his teeth to the end, and Zhang Maolin said apologetically: "Big Brother took me so hard, I didn’t keep up. I went back to practice hard and won the championship!"

Faced with the coach’s "asking me to row", Sun Lu, who has a good personal talent, always resisted. In the Tianjin National Games in 2017, he won only the fourth place in the preliminary and semi-finals. After that, disheartened, he returned to Qianjiang to take over the business at home, but he always felt that something was missing. After one year and three months, he returned to the provincial team. Seeing that his teammates made great achievements, Sun Lu, who was "unwilling", started "I want to row", completed the transformation of a mature athlete, and finally won the gold medal in Shaanxi National Games. Now, he has entered the transformation process of "rowing with me", not only maintaining the first achievement of dynamometer in the team, but also taking Zhang Maolin to practice actively.

There are 10 final boats in 7 events of this Spring Championship, which shows the talent thickness of Hubei Army in the new cycle. This is the capital that impacts the gold medal of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao National Games. How to turn "thickness" into "height"? As the head coaches of men’s and women’s teams, Chen Zheng and Xu Quan both believe that the breakthrough lies in "focusing on single oar" and "optimizing the combination". Chen Zheng said: "Single oar is the traditional advantage of our province, and it is the most important thing to turn the advantage into victory, especially to find the most suitable right oar player."