Ice queen Yang still a real cool customer
Yang Yang went from being an ordinary little girl in Northeast China to a short-track speed-skating world champion who won the nation’s first ever Winter Olympics gold medal.
The 41-year-old, addressed an audience of young people at Xinhua News Agency’s “New Youth 2018 Summer Speech” recently, revealing the secrets of her success and calling on China’s youth to illuminate the future with their dreams.
“People fail to realize their dreams, not because they lack talent, but because of an absence of courage to face failure and to insist on commitments,” said Yang, recalling her first Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan in 1998.
“The only medal I won at the 1998 Winter Olympics was the women’s 3,000m relay silver. I was extremely disappointed. I trained so hard, but the result was disheartening.”
That failure proved to be a pivotal moment in the career of Yang Yang A – so called to differentiate from a similarly named teammate.
“I felt like I was standing on the edge of the cliff every day and could fall off easily without hard work. When I stepped down from the podium, I had to find a way to improve,” Yang told her young audience.
Improve she certainly did. From 1997 to 2002, the Heilongjiang native won six straight individual world titles and sped into the history books as China’s first Winter Olympic champion by claiming golds in the 500m and 1,000m at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
At the 2006 Games in Turin, she had the honor of being China’s flag-bearer before bagging one more Olympic medal — bronze in the 1,000m.
Yang stressed that studying her opponents was an integral part of her preparations, revealing she often tried to picture herself as a rival’s coach and would regularly watch videos of races to figure out opponents’ strategies.
Yang also cited mental toughness as key to her Salt Lake City success. She had initially finished fourth in the 1,500m — an event she had not lost in five years — at those Games before dusting herself down and bouncing back to claim her milestone 500m gold.
“Stand up from where you fall,” she said, summoning the spirit of those heady days. “I still remember after the race, when I was interviewed by reporters, the only sentence I said was, ‘I’m Yang Yang A.’ I couldn’t say anything else, because at the time that was the only sentence in my mind.”
In 2010, Yang was elected an International Olympic Committee member — a term which has just come to an end.
Now she chairs the Athletes’ Commission for the Beijing 2022 Games.
“Beijing 2022 attaches great importance to the Athletes’ Commission and arranges specific tasks for our commission, which is a huge recognition for us,” she said of her new role.
“The Games are athlete-centered, and we therefore need to understand the demands of athletes. From sports organization to event operation, athletes’ opinions should be taken into consideration.”
Yang also established the Champion Foundation, a charitable organization which provides playground facilities and physical-education teachers for kids, and gives retired athletes the chance to further their education.
She also opened the Feiyang Skating Center in Shanghai to encourage more Chinese people to participate in winter sports.
“The dream enables us to see the future, motivates us to move forward, and constantly surpass ourselves,” Yang said.