Chapter 280: Feng Zhu’s Story (1/2)

Chapter 280: Feng Zhu’s Story

Translator: Nyoi-Bo StudioEditor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Feng Zhu finished his father's story, and finally, he talked about himself, ”My grandfather and my father have rested their hopes of being in the National Team on me. When I was 3 years old, my grandfather started to train me to play ping-pong. To be honest, I can't remember things clearly back at that time. I only remember that my grandfather emptied the living room and bought a ping-pong table especially for me, even though I was no taller than the table.”

”Then, not only my grandfather, but my father also joined in to train me. I was never in kindergarten when I was a child. I was trained by my grandfather on weekdays, while my father trained me on weekends. My family spent a lot of money on my training. They bought nutrition supplements to help me get stronger, and engaged a coach to help my training. Almost all my father's salary, and my grandfather's pension, were spent on me.”

”When I was 7 years old, I started to participate in ping-pong games between amateurs. When I was 8, I got my first achievement, the champion of our City Table Tennis Match Children Group. It did not take long before I was selected by City Sport Team. Then, was recruited to Provincial Youth Team. And later, when I was 14, I went to Provincial Sport Team.”

”Soon after I joined in our provincial team, a national team coach came for selection. He gave me high praise. However, since I was only in this team for a short time, he didn't take me to the National Team immediately. He let me stay here and practice for 1 or 2 years to accumulate more experience.”

”From then on, I started training madly, and had an additional training day and night. I knew both my grandfather and my father were anxious for me to enter in the National Team. I didn't want to let them down.”

”When I was 16 years old, a National Team coach came here again. It was another coach who came specially for testing me. But in the end, I was not chosen by the National Team.” Ending here, Feng Zhu showed a painful look on his face.

”Why?” asked Dai Li.

”The coach thought I lacked strength, and my techniques were outdated. I was really thin at that time, thin and short, and not strong.” After a short pause, he went on, ”What's more, I learned my ping-pong techniques from my grandfather and my father. The techniques in their time was different from modern times.”

Dai Li nodded to show his understanding. In the past decade, International Table Tennis Association had modified the competition rules repeatedly, and started to use new table tennis equipment. The major purpose was to restrict our National Team and break the monopoly on table tennis.

These changes had slowed down the speed of the ping-pong ball, which on the other hand, made it easier to play stalemate ball. Given an example of match ball, 38mm-diameter balls were used in the past, while 40mm-diameter balls were used in recent years. Although the diameter disparity was just 2mm, the ball speed slowed by 17%, and the rotation degree was cut by 23%, which made the previous playing style of fast and flexible become obsolete.

Almost all the world champions twenty years ago were the kind of players who had flexible bodies and fierce playing styles. The most popular style was like a fierce tiger, which gave the opponent a rush in 2-3 rounds and ended the fighting in 5-6 rounds. It was almost impossible to play stalemate ball!

Especially some short players were at a disadvantage on movement, because of their heights. They had to take two steps, while their opponents only took one. Therefore, these short players had to pursue fast and fierce playing techniques, so that they could gain the initiative and not be led by the nose.

Once they kept playing stalemate ball for a long time, or did not gain the initiative, their shortcomings would be amplified, which brought increasing probability of loss. However, it did not work to use the previous playing style. Modern table tennis not only needed techniques and flexibility, but also ample strength. Without strength, the ball would lack high-speed and rotation, then an attack would be not fierce enough. In this case, the opponent would catch the ball and launched counterattacks easily.

As for strength and rotation, the players who were tall with long arm spans certainly had advantages. That a big player would have more power, was a common view in the sports field. What's more, based on the leverage principle, players who had longer arm spans led to a bigger ball rotation. So in recent years, there were no more short world champions.

Feng Zhu was not very tall. He was less than 1.7 meters, in fact. Among males, this didn't matter 20 years ago, but now, it was definitely a disadvantage. The influence of height would not be obvious when players were teenagers, but the disadvantage would show up after they became adults.

That was what professional sports were supposed to be like. No matter what kind of sports, being outstanding when one was young was not real success. Many talented teenagers became ordinary and unknown after they became adults.

One of the important reasons for this was a change of their physical condition.

Youngsters engaged in sports didn't need to be at high physical conditions, and there was no big gap between youngsters. But after they became adults, being too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, or having arms that were not long enough, legs that were too short, shoulders that were too broad, hands that were not big enough, etc, all those factors would be obstacles to progress.

Take basketball for example, it was almost impossible to be a professional basketball player if one's height was only around 1.8 meters. But if one was 2.2 meters tall, basketball coaches would find one voluntarily, even if that guy could not play basketball at all.

Beyond that, Feng Zhu's playing style was another problem. Feng Zhu was trained by his grandfather and father, whose techniques were popular in the last century. Of course, Feng Zhu, who was trained by them, hence, used obsolete techniques.

Pursuing speed and having fierce techniques were nothing wrong for teenage players, and Feng Zhu could easily win against all his peers. In fact, Feng Zhu became the star of hope by his techniques.

However, in the National Team coaches' eyes, such techniques were out of date. At least, those skills could not survive in the National Team today.

There were too many table tennis talents in the country. Many teenagers' techniques and experiences were worse than Feng Zhu, but they had better physical conditions. This gave them better potential. National Team coaches valued players' potentials, rather than their current abilities.

Because there were too many talented players in the National Team, immediate force was sufficient. A lot of players, who stayed in the National Team for 7 or 8 years, hadn't waited for the opportunity to become the major force, so how could Feng Zhu's inconspicuous achievements catch those coaches' attention?

Feng Zhu continued, ”After the coach left, I started power exercises. I knew that, compared with those tall players, I didn't have any advantage in strength. The only thing I could do was to work extremely hard. If others exercised for 1 hour, I exercised for 2 hours. On techniques, I started making adjustments, and began to use strenuous techniques.”