From Rio to Tokyo: Liu Guozheng "Coaches Need to Understand the Athletes"

Who will be leading the Chinese national team in the next 4 years? New starts and new trends will emerge in the new Olympic cycle. We already know the official result of the Chinese National coaching team but we might also want to know the vision and targets for the coming years. "Table Tennis World", a Chinese table tennis magazine, has transcribed the recruitment speech of some of the applicants. Here is the summary of Liu Guozheng's speech in English.

Photo: 乒乓世界

About Liu Guozheng

Liu Guozheng, the 2001 and 2004 World team champion is known for his amazing comeback in 2001 World championships team final against Kim Taek Soo (Watch it here). He joined the coaching team of the national men's B team  in 2011. In his time as the chief-coach of the national men's B team, he has sent young talented players like Fan Zhendong, Liang Jingkun, Yu Ziyang, Xue Fei, Liu Dingshuo and Wang Chuqin to the A team, making sure the A team would have a full squad to play in international meets. In the new quad, he will be a national coach of the A team.

Table tennis has been the focus of the Chinese society after the Rio Olympics. The preparation work for the Tokyo Olympic will be a crucial mission to be accomplished. The followings are the major tasks of the new quad summarized by Liu Guozheng.


Major Tasks in the New Quad

1. Enhance Athletes' Metal Toughness

As table tennis is gaining more popularity and attention from the community, the sport will be making an impact through online social platform and commercial promotional events. It is a great opportunity to promote the sport but it is also a challenge for the team management and the development of athletes. Liu Guozheng believes it is crucial to remind athletes their responsibility to make an all-out effort in tournaments, be aggressive in competitions and be grateful for the support. He also talked about enhancing athletes' mental toughness. The key to enhance athletes' mental toughness is to build a habit of challenging themselves and facing their fear. As every fear they overcome would be a confident boost. Therefore, coaches should guide athletes to face their shortcomings and encourage them with positive attitude. With great mentality and good habits, athletes would have confidence in themselves and win the matches.



2. Tight Management, Develop Personal Traits

Coaches have to understand athletes' thoughts and hobbies as these help develop training plans that suit the athletes. Developing innovative techniques and skills based on athletes' personalities and strength can equip athletes with advance playing style, consistency and personal traits.


3. More Communication Among Athletes and Coaches

Communication can build mutual trust between coaches and athletes. Athletes nowadays have more ways to approach the outside world. They might have many thoughts but do not disclose them. If coaches do not know them well, it may affect athletes' performance in training and competitions, at worst conflicts evoke. Thus, communication is important for understanding athletes.

The unity and the hard work of the Chinese national team have lead to the dominance of the Chinese table tennis. Therefore Liu Guozheng promised to assist the head coach and chief-coach to mange the team and strive for winning gold medals in Olympic games. He believes team work will help accomplish their goals in the Tokyo Olympics.


4. Understanding the New Trend

The D40+ new ball is a lot more different from the original plastic ball. Its spins and speed have decreased. This implies more rallies in competition. The team needs to study the performance of the new ball and develop new techniques and tactics to cope with the change.


5. The Importance of Physical Fitness, Avoid Injuries

As the national competitions are increasingly more and the intensity is greater, A team members need to prevent from injuring themselves, especially the key players in the team as injuries will affect their training and competition. Liu Guozheng, as a national coach of the A team would learn more about physical fitness training and rehabilitation methods and try to understand the health condition of the athletes so that he could help athletes to stay away from injuries. He also noted the importance of science in training. Improving the physical fitness of the athletes in a scientific way will be the trend of the sport.


Liu Guozheng concluded he would try his best under the leadership of the head coach and chief-coach, train more talented players and work towards the Tokyo Olympics.

Source: 乒乓世界


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