Yuan Meng, chief correspondent of the peninsula’s all-media
The rugby event of Hangzhou Asian Games ended on the evening of September 26th. In the end, the men’s and women’s teams finished third and fourth and the first and second place finals were exciting. China men’s team lost to Japan in the third and fourth finals, ranking fourth; The women’s rugby team of China, which reached the final of the first and second place, thrillingly beat the Japanese team by one point, which not only avenged her defeat by her opponent at the Asian Games in Jakarta five years ago, but also realized her desire to win the championship at home. The exciting and fierce competition attracted tens of thousands of spectators to watch the game on the spot. And the whole Asian Games rugby match can be carried out smoothly, and there is also a force contributed by Qingdao people.
Both male and female football coaches are from Qingdao.
China women’s football team beat Japanese women’s football team 22: 21 in the final. At the moment of winning the championship, Lu Zhuan, the head of the Chinese coaching team of the women’s team, blushed excitedly. At the Tokyo Olympic Games two years ago, he broke into the quarterfinals of the Olympic Games for the first time with China women’s football, creating the best result in team history. Now, she has led the girls who play football to make history again.
Lu Zhuan, who is about to enter the age of no doubt, is a native of Qingdao. When he was young, he was selected by the People’s Liberation Army rugby team because of his outstanding sports performance. In this top football team in China, Lu Zhuan has grown rapidly and become the main force of the national team. Together with his teammates, he won the 2006 World Cup Sevens Rugby Series Bowl Championship in Hong Kong. After the Liaoning National Games in 2013, Lu Zhuan ended his 11-year career as an athlete and turned to be a coach.
Similar to his experience, Lu Xiaohui is now the head coach of the China rugby men’s team. As a Qingdao native, Lu Xiaohui is more than 10 years older than Lu Zhuan. He is one of the first professional football players in China. In the 1990s, when rugby first entered China, Lu Xiaohui was admitted to the rugby team of China Agricultural University from Qingdao.
Lu Zhuan (right), coach of China women’s rugby team, took a group photo with Hong Zhe, an international technical official. Both of them are from Qingdao.
Lu Xiaohui’s professional experience is very rich. After graduating from college, he was invited to be a "foreign aid" for two years by the rugby club in China and Hongkong. In 2004, he began to lead the national women’s football team. "I led the team to win the first Asian champion of women’s football in 2006." Lu Xiaohui recalled. At the end of 2009, Lu Xiaohui returned to his hometown and picked up the coach of Shandong Men’s Olive. Because of his excellent performance, he also got the opportunity to coach the national team.
Both Lu Zhuan and Lu Xiaohui have achieved the goals set before the game when they led the team to the Asian Games. Compared with the gold medal of the women’s team, the results of the men’s team’s top four are not bright, but considering that China started late, especially compared with the world’s top teams such as Japan and South Korea, China’s men’s football team has made remarkable progress in recent years, and it has not fallen behind against Japan and South Korea. "After the Asian Games, we are going to play the Olympic qualifiers immediately, and the task is still relatively heavy. I hope that the Olympic qualifiers in the future can make up for the regret of this competition." Lu Xiaohui and reporters said.
There are also many Qingdao people in the technical team.
Walking off the podium, Lu Zhuan happily took a group photo with several staff members. When I opened my mouth, I found that it was all Qingdao accent. "There are 11 Qingdao people in the football competition team of this Asian Games." Liu Jifeng, who is in charge of the competition operation, and the reporter introduced.
Liu Jifeng is about the same age as Lu Xiaohui, and he is also one of the earliest football players in China. Lao Liu was admitted to Shanghai Institute of Physical Education. After graduating from Shanghai Institute of Physical Education in 1999, he studied rugby rules at his own expense and became a national referee. After eight years as a referee, Liu Jifeng devoted more energy to organizing rugby matches and promoting the sport.
"For the Asian Games held at our doorstep, our competition operation team came to Hangzhou two years in advance, worked intermittently for more than a year, and stayed in Hangzhou for the last two months, mainly to ensure the smooth operation of the event, and then to protect our national team." Liu Jifeng said.
Qingdao referees and technical officials who participated in the rugby match of this Asian Games took a group photo with the women’s team coach Lu Zhuan after the game.
Qingdao people who participated in the rugby match operation team of this Asian Games also included Teng Liang of the competition operation team, Hong Zhe, an international technical official, Kou Yong, Ai Bin, Guo Xiaohui, Jiang Gangan, Wang Tingting, Yin Linmeng, Tan Xueshuai and Song Shun, domestic technical officials. They all have experience in rugby, and many of them are former star players. Like the young Wang Tingting, she once won the third place in the women’s rugby team on behalf of the national team at the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games. Jiang Gangan won the rugby women’s team championship in Incheon Asian Games on behalf of China in 2014, and won the rugby women’s team championship in Asian Championships for two consecutive years in 2015 and 2016.
Hong Zhe, an international technical official, currently works in Qingdao Compulsory Isolation Drug Rehabilitation Center and has been a rugby referee for 15 years. "In recent years, the rugby referee team in our country has been growing, and it is very necessary to test it through high-level competitions such as the Asian Games. This time, we successfully completed the task and were recognized by officials and technical representatives of international rugby organizations. " Hong Wei said.
Start early and have plenty of reserve forces.
Men’s rugby sevens entered the Asian Games family in 1998, and women’s rugby officially became a competition in the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. Because this sport combines technology, wisdom, physical strength, speed and other elements, the intensity of confrontation is much higher than that of football and basketball, so it is highly observable.
With rugby officially becoming an Olympic and Asian Games event, the sport, which was slightly "unpopular", has attracted more and more attention in China. Many Qingdao rugby players participated in this Asian Games in Hangzhou, which is enough to show the development level of Qingdao rugby.
China women’s football team took a group photo with the technical officials after winning the championship.
Qingdao rugby has always occupied a very important position in the national rugby field. This is mainly due to the early launch of this sport in Qingdao. Since the 1990s, Beijing Agricultural University, Shanghai Institute of Physical Education, PLA Institute of Physical Education and other institutions of higher learning have begun to recruit rugby talents. Qingdao players are generally favored because of their excellent physical condition, flexibility and coordination.
In 1998, Qingdao established the first rugby club in China, Shark Rugby Club. More and more Qingdao children began to contact and engage in rugby. In the rugby competition of the 25th Sports Meeting in Shandong Province, which ended last year, the four teams of men and women in Qingdao Basketball Rugby Center won a champion, two runners-up and a third runner-up, and won a total of 12.5 gold medals according to the scoring method of rugby events, ranking first in the province in the gold medal list. This fully shows the strength of Qingdao rugby junior talents at present.
"Now there are more and more retired players in Qingdao who have transformed into referees and technical officials. Qingdao rugby has developed very well as a whole. I hope that competitions like the Asian Games can further exercise our referee team and drive more Qingdao people to participate in this sport in the future." Liu Jifeng said.
