Zeng Chunlei was born into a moderately wealthy family in Beijing in the late autumn of 1989.
Zeng Chunlei's parents already had a son before she was born, and due to their busy work, she and her brother grew up under the care of grandparents and nannies and aunts when they were young, which also made their relationship very deep.
Although Zeng Chunlei's parents are both in business, they also love sports. When she was a child, Zeng Chunlei inherited her parents' excellent sports genes.
Unlike other girls of the same age who like dolls, Zeng Chunlei has been fond of sports since she was a child, and what is even more surprising is that she is taller than her peers.
In 1998, 9-year-old Zeng Chunlei followed the Chinese women's volleyball team to participate in the 13th World Championships held in Japan under the guidance of head coach Lang Ping.
The Chinese women's volleyball team finally successfully entered the final after passing all the way. Although they lost to the Cuban women's volleyball team in the final, winning the runner-up is also one of the best results achieved by the Chinese women's volleyball team in the World Championships.
Zeng Chunlei once watched this World Championships in front of the TV, and she was deeply infected by the tenacious fighting spirit of the Chinese women's volleyball team when she was young.
However, Zeng Chunlei's favorite women's volleyball player at that time was the famous Dutch left-handed receiver Leferinck.
Leferinck's shooting movements are beautiful and her shooting percentage is high, and she was the main scorer of the Dutch women's volleyball team at that time. However, the main reason why Zeng Chunlei likes her is because both of them are "left-handed".
At that time, Zeng Chunlei dreamed of one day becoming an athlete as good as Lefe Link.
Zeng Chunlei was valued by the women's volleyball coach of Beijing Dongcheng District Sports School in the same year because of her height and other reasons, and was invited to the sports school for volleyball training.
Zeng Chunlei was overjoyed, but her mother disagreed.
Her mother was worried that volleyball training would Xi affect her daughter's academic performance, so Zeng Chunlei promised her mother that she would work hard to ensure that volleyball training would not have any negative impact on her studies.
Zeng Chunlei's homeroom teacher deliberately arranged some personal time to help her for this purpose, and any lessons that were delayed due to competitions or training, the teacher would point out to her what needed to be re-Xi after the fact.
In the process of practicing Xi volleyball, Zeng Chunlei also experienced a lot of hardships, especially when she really came into contact with volleyball, and found that she had been in a state of catching up with others.
Although Zeng Chunlei's height is quite tall among children of the same age, she is relatively short in the circle of Xi volleyball.
In addition, she was 9 years old when she started Xi volleyball, and she lagged behind others in both height and technical level.
Zeng Chunlei showed very strong perseverance at that time, although it was a cold winter when she first entered the sports school, and the coach did not require the students to participate in training every day, but she insisted on coming to the sports school every day and always participated in training on time after class.
Zeng Chunlei was very competitive at that time, because she was a new player, so she was often bullied by the old players. Although her skills are inferior to her opponents, she never shows weakness and even makes bets with her veteran players to see who will be selected by the national team first.
After practicing Xi for a year or two, Li Fangfei, a member of the team, was selected by the Beijing Sports School, which made Zeng Chunlei feel very dissatisfied.
She thinks her skills are better than Li Fangfei, but strangely, she didn't enter the city sports school despite this. It is worth mentioning that later when she was in the Beijing team, Zeng Chunlei and Li Fangfei lived in the same room.
After a period of time, the city sports school came to the Dongcheng District Sports School again to select new players, and many of Zeng Chunlei's teammates were selected, but Zeng Chunlei was still not admitted. The coach didn't pay much attention to this, after all, Zeng Chunlei was still very young.
However, in the next few days, Zeng Chunlei was absent from the training sessions of the sports school in a row.
The coach had to contact Zeng Chunlei's mother and learned that she was depressed because she saw other teammates go to the city sports school to train, which led to a decrease in appetite and sleep quality, and even symptoms of mouth and tongue sores.
As soon as she heard this, the coach felt that Zeng Chunlei was very pursuing, and told her that he could take her to the city sports school every Saturday for training until the end of the winter vacation.
After a period of training, the Municipal Sports School also had a strong interest in Zeng Chunlei, coupled with the recommendation of the coach, and finally the Municipal Sports School agreed to Zeng Chunlei's advanced team to follow the training.
The Municipal Sports School asked Zeng Chunlei to join the advanced team for training, but there was one condition: because Zeng Chunlei was fatter at that time and was considered a little fat, the Municipal Sports School required Zeng Chunlei to be **.
If she doesn't make it**, she'll be returned.
In the following period of time, Zeng Chunlei put on ** clothes every day and kept running lap after lap on the track of the Municipal Sports School.
In just two months, she managed to lose more than 20 pounds, and she also successfully kept up with the team's training rhythm and intensity.
As soon as Zeng Chunlei entered the city sports school, she learned that the national junior group B competition would be held in the summer vacation, so she immediately told the coach that she wanted to participate.
Zeng Chunlei had just entered the city sports school at that time, so she had not yet established herself there. Many of the team members thought she was "wishful thinking".
After Zeng Chunlei's success, the Municipal Sports School not only signed her up for the national group B competition, but also made her the main attacking player. No one knew at the time that such a shift would take place.
In 2002, Beijing hosted the 11th National Games. In this competition, Zeng Chunlei represented the Shijingshan team, and all the participating teams knew that the Shijingshan team had an 11 player known as "left-handed".
Despite this, the Shijingshan team still chose to hand over most of the key balls to Zeng Chunlei to play.
Undeterred, Zeng Chunlei put on an extraordinary performance in the final against Xicheng, ultimately helping Shijingshan win 31-29 and win the crucial third game.
In this final, Zeng Chunlei took on most of the offensive tasks and successfully led the Shijingshan team to win the championship of Beijing athletes.
Soon after the game, 13-year-old Zeng Chunlei joined the Beijing volleyball team, and she was just a young player at the time.
After training for two years in Beijing, Zeng Chunlei was selected for the national junior volleyball team at the age of 15. It is worth mentioning that in that year, the Chinese women's volleyball team won the Athens Olympic championship under the leadership of head coach Chen Zhonghe.
When the game was playing, Zeng Chunlei sat in front of the TV and watched the final between the Chinese team and the Russian team.
She witnessed the Chinese women's volleyball team stage an amazing reversal, including the outstanding performance of Feng Kun, the senior sister of the Beijing team. The young Zeng Chunlei silently vowed in her heart that she would definitely participate in the Olympics in the future.
In 2006, 17-year-old Zeng Chunlei underwent a surgery to clean her left knee and failed to return to normal for a long time. As a result, she felt a little frustrated and had the idea of retiring.
During this time, Zeng Chunlei received invitations from some universities in the United States, and she also seriously considered whether she should choose to retire to study. However, at this moment, her father, who usually doesn't interfere much with Zeng Chunlei's thoughts, said to her:
You know how difficult it is to be an athlete. Now that your dream hasn't come true, you want to retire?There are many opportunities to go to school in the future, so there is no need to rush.
Her father's words, though not flashy, were simple and honest, and these two sentences evoked Zeng Chunlei's memories of her childhood training, and at the same time rekindled her inner desire to participate in the Olympics.
However, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Zeng Chunlei was still not selected for the shortlist. This situation is understandable, because the Chinese team had many outstanding athletes such as Zhao Ruirui and Wang Yimei at that time, and Zeng Chunlei was only 19 years old at that time.
In 2009, the national team was reorganized after the Beijing Olympics, and the 20-year-old Zeng Chunlei was included in the national team squad for the first time.
At that time, everyone had high hopes for this left-handed receiver, but surprisingly, only half a year later, Zeng Chunlei was transferred out of the national team.
Zeng Chunlei not only accidentally sprained her ankle at the beginning of the new league season, resulting in the absence of six league games, which caused her to be troubled.
Zeng Chunlei made an official comeback in mid-January 2010, and she quickly led the Beijing women's volleyball team to win the first game after her comeback, showing remarkable strength.
In 2012, Zeng Chunlei was selected for the London Olympics due to her outstanding performances in a series of Olympic warm-up competitions.
Zeng Chunlei played a substitute role in the London Olympics, and when the starting setter Zhang Lei was limited, she was able to change the situation for the Chinese women's volleyball team every time she played.
Although the Chinese women's volleyball team did not perform well in the London Olympics, Zeng Chunlei's performance was very good.
In 2013, the Chinese women's volleyball team was reorganized, and Lang Ping became the head coach of the Chinese women's volleyball team.
In the first phase of the national team training camp, Zeng Chunlei was among them, and she was present in the three training camps in 2013, which shows that Lang Ping's favor for Zeng Chunlei is obvious to all.
The Chinese women's volleyball team lost to the host Thailand team in the Asian Championships that year, and Zeng Chunlei did not get the opportunity to play as a substitute. After the game, she asked herself in confusion: "Why do I have so much strength, but it is not used by the coach?"”
Zeng Chunlei found her own answer when solving this problem: "My movements are very blunt, sometimes a kick in the sky, sometimes a kick on the ground, if I were a coach, I would not use myself." ”
So, after this fight, she realized how important consistency is for athletes.
After the start of the national team training camp, Zeng Chunlei made up her mind to improve her technical level.
She approached An Jiajie, who is in the receiving position on the national team's coaching staff, for advice and was given some ways to improve and improve her technique. Zeng Chunlei silently worked hard to practice Xi technique.
Zeng Chunlei set her sights on winning a medal at the 2014 World Championships, and the Chinese team eventually won the silver medal, and she also showed an excellent performance.
However, after losing to the United States team in the final, she began to reflect on the reasons why the Chinese team lost the game, and finally concluded that the foundation of the Chinese women's volleyball team was not as solid as that of the American team.
The 2015 World Cup is about to start, and the captain of the Chinese women's volleyball team, Hui Ruoqi, is unable to participate due to injury, so Zeng Chunlei was temporarily appointed by the coaching staff as the captain of the Chinese women's volleyball national team.
At that time, the focus of the national team was Zhu Ting, because she was more prominent than Zeng Chunlei in terms of strength and potential, although Zeng Chunlei was in very good condition at that time.
She doesn't care about these, she only cares about going all out on the court, regardless of the number of points, and the Chinese women's volleyball team finally won the World Cup again after 12 years.
Zeng Chunlei performed well during the World Cup, however her form has been declining since 2016.
In that year's World Women's Volleyball Grand Prix in Ningbo, she made frequent mistakes, so there were concerns that she might not be able to participate in the Rio Olympics.
In the end, this was indeed the case, Zeng Chunlei failed to participate in the Rio Olympics due to illness, but the Chinese women's volleyball team won the championship there "miraculously", and won the Olympic championship again after 12 years.
This is also the closest Zeng Chunlei has come to winning an Olympic title.
After the Olympics, Zeng gradually returned to her peak form, and was selected for the national team again in 2017, winning the team's first Grand Champions Cup in 16 years, and won the bronze medal at the World Championships with her teammates in 2018.
Zeng Chunlei participated in the 2019 Women's Volleyball World Cup, and the Chinese women's volleyball team won all 11 games and won the World Cup. At that time, it was the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, so the Chinese women's volleyball team was also fortunate to board the float of the National Day parade.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are less than a year away, and many people thought that Zeng Chunlei would definitely participate with the team, but who knew that at the beginning of 2020, the world was hit by a serious new crown epidemic.
Because Zeng Chunlei was still in good form at the time, it was widely believed that she was expected to compete in the Tokyo Olympics, and in the end, the Tokyo Olympics were postponed for a year.
At this time, Zeng Chunlei met Sun Shengjie, a young entrepreneur in Fuzhou, and the two gradually started a relationship.
However, although the relationship between the two has not been established for a long time, Zeng Chunlei has been in closed training due to the epidemic, so the two can only use mobile phones most of the time to relieve the pain of lovesickness.
Despite this, the relationship between the two has not deteriorated.
After falling in love for less than a year, Zeng Chunlei posted her marriage certificate with Sun Shengjie on Moments on October 12, 2020, and then returned to the Beijing team to prepare for the new season of the Volleyball Super League three days after getting married.
In the middle of the league, Zeng Chunlei suddenly disappeared, and the official said it was because of family reasons. However, in hindsight, Zeng Chunlei was pregnant at the time.
For this reason, Zeng Chunlei ultimately failed to participate in the Tokyo Olympics, and then she successfully welcomed her role as a mother and announced her retirement.
Throughout Zeng Chunlei's career, she has been praised and denigrated, and her plump figure has always attracted more people's attention.
There are many athletes like Zeng Chunlei in the sports world, who have top strength, but often fail to achieve their expected results for various reasons, which is the cruelty of competitive sports!