Lang Ping curtain call.

When she is firmly marching on the road of "becoming an excellent person", every woman and every China person can gain courage and strength from her.

September 1, 202 1 was Lang Ping's first day as head coach of China women's volleyball team. She went to Suzhou to sweep the grave for her mother who died of illness a year ago and said to her mother, "I'm sorry that I didn't successfully complete the task of the Tokyo Olympic Games this time, but whether it is perfect or not, I will hand in the baton."

In the second year when Lang Ping was the head coach of China women's volleyball team, her father died, and Lang Ping didn't see her for the last time. In 2020, when her mother was seriously ill, Lang Ping closed her training with the women's volleyball team and had no chance to accompany her.

Now that the Tokyo Olympics is over, Lang Ping says it's time to return to life.

Thorns and glory

Back to Tokyo.

In the Olympic women's volleyball group match, Zhu Ting, the main attacker with recurrent wrist injury, scored only 4 points in the first match. China women's volleyball team suffered three consecutive defeats from Turkish, American and Russian Olympic Committees.

But after the game on July 29th, Lang Ping still asked the girls to "hold their heads up". She seemed to realize that the attacker Zhu Ting was seriously injured and it was difficult to mobilize the initiative of other players on the field, so she simply let Li Yingying, a 2 1 year-old teenager, replace Zhu Ting and set up a new "heavy artillery" platform.

Li Yingying's performance verified Lang Ping's judgment. In the following two matches, China women's volleyball team defeated the undefeated Italian team and the weaker Argentine team respectively, with a record of 3-0.

In the face of previous failures, they already knew that there was no hope of qualifying, but they pulled themselves together and continued to pursue those seemingly meaningless victories in the remaining games.

This inevitably reminds people of the 20 18 World Women's Volleyball Championship. China and Italy competed for the final qualification in the semi-final, but eventually lost 2-3, and China women's volleyball team lost the possibility of winning the championship. When all the players were depressed, Lang Ping encouraged everyone to prepare for the next game against Holland and compete for the bronze medal.

At the team meeting that night, Lang Ping said something that impressed someone at the venue. She said: "We don't have to play the national anthem, but we should try our best to raise the national flag."

As a world-class "excellent athlete" and today's "world's best coach", Lang Ping's volleyball career for more than 40 years has been like this, with numerous failures and numerous victories.

She was born in Tianjin, 1960. She got good grades since she was a child, and her mother was bent on training her to go to Tsinghua. But in those days, Lang Ping found that although she was exhausted, she pushed the shot put farther than anyone else, and she played everything related to sports better than others.

/kloc-at the age of 0/4, she secretly went to Beijing No.2 Amateur Sports School to take the exam without telling her mother. After being found out, it was the teacher of the sports school who promised to send her to the Beijing Institute of Physical Education, and her mother agreed that Lang Ping should be an athlete. Since then, it has been out of control.

Lang Ping was selected to the China Women's Volleyball Team at the age of 18. Under the guidance of coach Yuan Weimin, the 265,438+0-year-old China women's volleyball team took her as the main attacker and won the World Cup for the third time, thus opening the era of "five consecutive championships" for China women's volleyball team. In 1982 World Championships, 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, 1985 World Cup and 1986 World Championships, China women's volleyball team won the championship again.

1986, Lang Ping retired and soon went to study in the United States. The fate of China Women's Volleyball Team is also ups and downs in the long river of time.

In 1990s, the performance of China women's volleyball team dropped all the way to the eighth place in the world. 1994, Lai, Cui and other veterans even wrote a resignation report and wanted to leave the women's volleyball team. 11June, the former head coach Yuan Weimin talked to Lang Ping about the current situation of women's volleyball, hoping that she could return to China to coach.

Yuan Weimin said to Lang Ping: "What the women's volleyball team lacks most is a spirit, which is the cohesion of the coach. It is necessary to use a personality to mobilize athletes. "

1995 15 On February 5th, he ended his first marriage and bid farewell to his established life in the United States. Lang Ping returned to China with his bare hands. The next afternoon, she announced her goal of leading the women's volleyball team back to the first place in Asia at the press conference.

1996 At the Atlanta Olympic Games, the recognized world-class teams were Cuba, Brazil, Russia and the United States in turn, and no experts were optimistic about China. But it is such a team without a star. Lang Ping won five games in the group stage and beat the German team and the Russian team one after another. Although she finally lost to the Cuban women's volleyball team, she still won the silver medal unexpectedly.

At that time, because of the sudden emergence of China women's volleyball team, FIVB even made an exception and elected Lang Ping as "the best coach in the world". Prior to this, only the gold medal team coach could win this honor.

During the London Olympic cycle, China women's volleyball team changed coaches three times every four years, and was once again in a dilemma. On March 27th, 20 13, the new leader of Paiguan Center invited Lang Ping to be the head coach of China women's volleyball team for the second time. A few days later, former teammate Chen Zhaodi passed away, which brought a heavy blow to Lang Ping. So, she agreed to take the command seal and decided to pass on the spirit of women's volleyball again.

In the following nine years, Lang Ping led a brand-new women's volleyball team, won several major championships including the World Cup and the Olympic Games, and returned to the world-class echelon. Especially in Rio Olympic Games, Lang Ping used Liu Xiaotong, a "magic weapon", and staged a shocking reversal in the match against Brazil, the host country, which opened the door to winning the championship.

When Lang Ping lost the Tokyo Olympic Games, she choked in an interview, saying that she was mainly responsible and sorry for the fans who cared about the women's volleyball team.

However, there are few accusations on the Internet. It seems that people do not hesitate to believe that no matter how many failures they have experienced, the China women's volleyball team with Lang Ping as its spiritual idol will surely make a comeback.

Wisdom in the ball

Lang Ping knows that women volleyball players enter the national team and compete with other countries in the world on behalf of China. This is a "world-leading" cause, and her philosophy is that "when sports reach the world-leading level, IQ and EQ should be high".

At one time, as athletes, Lang Ping, Hyman of the United States and Luis of Cuba were called/kloc-0, the "three main attackers" of the world women's volleyball team in the 1980s. Later, she became the only female head coach in international volleyball. With her present, the coaches and athletes of the enemy are inevitably flustered.

Lang Ping relies on her profound understanding of this field and its laws.

20 13 Lang Ping took over as head coach of China women's volleyball team for the second time. At first, she put forward the concept of "big national team". Through combing the national women's volleyball school-age talents, she recruited athletes in batches and conducted multi-stage training to investigate. Of the women's volleyball players in the London Olympic cycle, she only left six, and turned around and pulled out a series of new forces.

In the first year, she transferred this girl with strong jumping ability from Henan to the national team, that is, Zhu Ting. When the national team list was announced, many people asked, "Who is Zhu Ting?" However, later stories show that Zhu Ting is a talented volleyball player in China. Next, Lang Ping tapped talents such as Zhang Changning and Li Yingying, which strongly supported the diagonal of Zhu Ting.

For those players who are a little older but strong, Lang Ping will not let go.

In 20 14, when she selected Yan Ni, born in 1987, to the national team, the girl herself did not believe in the future development. However, seven years later, her name is still in the national team. This veteran is tall and has slender arms. With lightning blocking, he won the "best secondary attack" twice, and is known as the "North Great Wall" of China women's volleyball team.

In addition to players, the "big national team" has a broader connotation.

Under the trend of younger women's volleyball team, Lang Ping began to use young coaches such as An Jiajie, Wu Xiaolei, Yu Fei and thomas lee. She also invited Sherwin S.W, a famous surgeon from the University of Chicago School of Medicine, as a team doctor to reduce injuries for women volleyball players. There is also Elizabeth Darling, a physical therapist with the certificate of sports coach and the certificate of clinical expert of bone trauma, who provides special sports medical services for women volleyball team.

The "Great National Team" scheme has solved the difficulties of China women's volleyball team for many years. Once upon a time, the national women's volleyball team "dominated the world with one lineup", and the main players were overloaded in large and small events, and the substitutes were not given the opportunity to play, which was obviously different from the main players.

But in Lang Ping's team, there is only the difference between starters and non-starters. The main force rotates in a large area, and different teams can be diverted to face different games.

Under this mechanism, in 20 19, the youngest women's volleyball team led by coach An Jiajie was able to beat the proud Italian women's volleyball team led by the famous Egnu with a record of 3-0. At the Tokyo Olympics, Li Yingying, who replaced Zhu Ting, could turn the tide in an instant.

Lang Ping put forward the requirement of "reading" for himself and his team members. We are not required to "study", but to understand the internal logic of things.

When she took over the women's volleyball team in China twice, the first thing she did was always "miss the players".

Before the meeting, she asked the team members to fill out a questionnaire, the contents of which were all about the team members: your personality characteristics, technical characteristics, what you want the coach to help you in, and so on. So Lang Ping can get to know the players quickly.

20 13, the setter Shen Jingsi saw Lang Ping for the first time on the court. When Lang Ping looked up and saw her, he even shouted Shen Jingsi's nickname: "Little Kwai, run forward!"

In this heart-to-heart intimacy process, Lang Ping can more easily distinguish how to communicate with girls with different personalities. She knows when to be dignified and when to be kind.

In the usual training and competition, she also gradually taught the players to "read the game", understand the opponent's offensive and defensive intentions, and understand the causal relationship between the scores.

Lang Ping's sister Lang Hong once told people about this "reading" thinking. For example, you can't stop people from deducting a small slash. See that she can only draw a small diagonal line when she is near the net. If the ball she gave is far from the net, this effect will not be exerted. So Lang Ping trained everyone to judge the ball in advance according to the changes on the field.

At the same time, with the help of more scientific analysis methods, she also introduced Italian technical analysis software to calculate the opponent's spike route and deploy and adjust her offensive strategy according to the analysis results.

More importantly, all these wise strategies of Lang Ping are based on accumulated efforts. She said, "In fact, there is no secret to victory, just doing it well every day."

She has never been vague about the basic training of women volleyball players. Arrange players to practice finger lying support, exercise finger strength and enhance the blocking effect. Overweight kings are always afraid of this link. Every time she finished practicing, her fingers hurt like they were going to break. But Lang Ping always called the roll, chasing the king for finger support. "Damei, where are you hiding?"

And Lang Ping has always set an example. Her joints are often injured, but after five hours of training, she walks around and instructs, sitting and resting for no more than 20 minutes.

It is no secret that Lang Ping worships Jordan. She reads Jordan's biography, and she also tells the players about his excellent qualities. The most important thing she learned from Jordan is a pure sense of competition. When an athlete reaches the most advanced position in the world, the war he starts is his own war with himself.

"Jordan's psychological quality is great. At the critical moment, he was beaten half to death. Generally, he tends to be soft-hearted, fearing that he won't get points in case. Jordan, on the other hand, the fiercer the game, the more he plays, the more he dares to make a move, which means he can perform and score goals. He feels that his value is reflected in his extraordinary performance at the critical moment. He said that no one in the world can stop him from scoring. There is only one person, and that is himself. To defeat yourself. "

She wrote in her autobiography: "An excellent player is first of all a civilized person and an excellent person."

1986, after reaching the "five consecutive titles", Lang Ping decided to retire and first enter the English major of Beijing Normal University. The following year, she went to study in the United States at her own expense through the "New China Education Foundation" and came to Los Angeles for the first time.

At the peak of her career, she made a decision that shocked the world-retiring and studying languages at Beijing Foreign Studies University. Two years later, she went to study in the United States with her husband at that time, which was "an eye-opener"! Lang Ping represents the idealism and open spirit of the 1980s.

Why go abroad?

Lang Ping recalled in his autobiography "Passion Years":

As for the opportunity to study abroad, Lang Ping gave such a story:

Arriving in America for the first time

At that time, Lang Ping didn't have much economic reserves, and he got a visa at his own expense-he couldn't work and had no financial resources, so he had to rely on his friends in China. Because he didn't want to live under the protection of others, Lang Ping moved to New Mexico, where he studied for a master's degree in sports management and worked as a volleyball assistant to earn tuition. The bitter days lasted for several years.

Although there was no honor, applause and money, Lang Ping thought it was a very valuable experience in her life: after moving to New Mexico, I worked as a teaching assistant in the university volleyball team. What the school gave me was that I could study for free. But being a teaching assistant is actually coaxing some poor players. At first, it was hard for me to accept that I was a member of the world champion team and came here to coax a group of college students who could hardly play ball. My position was reversed. But I have to convince myself that I don't want to be reversed. Go back to China. You came to America to find "upside down".

In order to be independent and self-sufficient, that summer, I worked as a coach in ten summer camps and taught children to play volleyball. The children who come to summer camp are just for fun. It's especially hard to accompany them and coax them from morning till night. At that time, my language was not enough, and it was particularly difficult to express anything.

At that time, I was poor I didn't want to go to the school cafeteria or McDonald's for lunch during the day, so I made my own rice sandwich, went to the supermarket to buy some salad dressing, cabbage, tomatoes and ham, and then bought two pieces of bread. In this way, I can eat a fast food for a week for five or six yuan. But after eating it, I feel sick at the sight of sandwiches.

The first time I returned to China, I went to Harbin and played an exhibition match with the old women's volleyball team. Most of my old teammates are directors and directors-level cadres, and I am still a poor student. I laughed and called myself an "international farmer". -from Lang Ping's autobiography.

Stick to one's teeth

For eight years, Lang Ping gritted his teeth abroad:

If life is not independent, I feel incomplete, so I have to work and study to earn my tuition. More importantly, it proves the value of our athletes in China. I was very excited when the boss of the Italian volleyball club hired me. I took other people's money, so I will work hard. I saved a lot of energy, and as a result, on the first day of training, I exercised too hard and pulled my muscle, but I still couldn't get off the line of fire slightly. The next day, I didn't miss it in the game. I jumped there with one and a half legs and put my opponent down. Soon, I became the main force in the team.

However, in the middle of the season, my right knee was seriously injured and my ankle was sprained, so I had to have an operation, and the doctor took care of me and had to rest for a month. I was anxious and sad, so I missed four games and lost all four. As soon as the boss sees me, he always says, "How is your knee joint?"

And his expression is saying, "What's wrong with your knee?"

Of course I understand the boss's feelings. The club survives by winning. Look at the boss's face every day and you will know whether you have won or lost. His face is like a weather forecast. Moreover, after losing the game, the boss was unhappy and his salary was delayed. ...

Later, before the wound healed, I gritted my teeth and asked my friend to send me painkillers from America. I swallowed four tablets before I went on stage. For a while, the cartilage was broken, and a small piece ran into the joint and got stuck in the seam. It hurts, stimulates the periosteum to come out, and there is effusion all around. Let the doctor pump out the effusion before the game and then pump it after the game. There is no way, no matter how painful and troublesome it is, I will persist. If you take someone else's money, you get a thousand dollars for nothing. I'm really trying. This is a brand-new feeling, and it is also the first time in my life to play for money. One year later, my visa was changed to a "work visa" because of this work experience, and I can apply for a green card in the United States.

What's more gratifying is that I passed the language barrier with a TOEFL score of 560, and after a rigorous examination, I became a graduate student majoring in sports management at the University of New Mexico.

The battle of transcendence

At that time, she chose to study abroad because she wanted to step down from the throne of the champion and start from scratch.

She knows that without women's volleyball, she is nothing. She must start from scratch and start learning new skills again. "I try not to be blinded by the great success and great honor of' five consecutive championships' and keep my heart bright."

Lang Ping just let herself grow up in a poor life, and her study involved everything.

She got a master's degree in sports management modernization here, and gained a more professional vision, which also directly affected her strategy of coaching China women's volleyball team in the future. She didn't continue the training method of squeezing the physical limit in the old women's volleyball era, but combined with the knowledge of psychology, nutrition and other disciplines to scientifically customize the training plan for women's volleyball players.

At that time, computers were not popular. Raul's husband John taught Lang Ping how to use the computer. At the same time, John helped Lang Ping adapt to the English environment more quickly. When he taught Lang Ping, he taught children to read pictures, nose, eyes and mouth books, just as he taught children.

Meanwhile, Raul taught her how to behave. At first, she stayed with the Raul couple and didn't know how to help the owner share the housework. Raul generously invited her, "Can you help me clean up?" From then on, she learned to help Raul when cooking and wash dishes after dinner. Lang Ping's understanding of the details of life is getting fuller day by day.

From 65438 to 0995, Lang Ping returned to China and became the head coach. Compared with the past, he is more mature and steady.

In June of that year, 1 1, she attended the FIVB meeting for the first time. President FIVB stood up warmly and applauded and said, "Welcome Ms. Lang Ping to our meeting as the head coach". At first glance, everyone else at the meeting was male. She sat in coach China's seat and thought that she must show a little feminine spirit and momentum.

At that time, everyone was discussing the role of "free man" in the new volleyball rules, and many countries had no objection. But Lang Ping is clearly aware that this rule is more beneficial to European and American teams.

Asian players are small and slim. Our advantage is that the back row is skilled, while the European and American teams are weak in defense. If the "free man" rule comes into effect, then European and American teams can replace players at any position in the back row to consolidate their defense.

Lang Ping hit the nail on the head and started a psychological game. She told President FIVB that all the grand prix, including the World Cup, were in Asia at that time, and a large number of Asian fans and sponsors were willing to pay. If changing the rules is not conducive to the development of Asian volleyball, then "you will lose many spectators and sponsors, and your survival will be more difficult".

At that time, volleyball also wanted athletes to change into tight sportswear similar to swimsuits to enhance their appreciation.

Lang Ping also flatly opposed, "Asians generally have long waists, and their hips are not as good-looking as Cubans. Let's wear swimsuit-style sportswear, which will not look good, but will make us feel uncomfortable. " .

For China women's volleyball team and even the world volleyball world, Lang Ping is a shining gift. But more than that, every woman and every China can gain courage and strength from her when she unswervingly marches on the road of "becoming an excellent person".

Farewell, Dao Lang, and thank you for your existence.