The Chinese women's volleyball team won the World Cup for the first time in 1981, thus opening the prelude to the glorious era of the Chinese women's volleyball team.
In this high-profile "** women's volleyball team", Zhou Xiaolan can be called the most eye-catching player.
With her excellent ball skills and charming appearance, she became an idol of the whole country at that time and was known as the "Tiananmen City Wall".
She was serving as a national commissioner, but abruptly resigned as deputy director and followed her husband to the United States. It all happened in 1995.
Why did this former women's volleyball hero have such a dramatic turn in his life?28 years later, how is her life?
Zhou Xiaolan was born in 1957, and her parents were intellectuals in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.
She was full of energy when she was a child, often playing with boys, and especially enjoyed physical education classes.
When she was 13 years old, in 1970, she completed the fifth grade of primary school in Nanjing. It was a special time when her parents, wrongly identified as "rightists," were sent to the barren countryside of Gujiao, Shanxi Province for labor reform.
Zhou Xiaolan was forced to come to this strange village with her parents, toiled with them in the fields, and lived a simple and difficult life.
During the day, she was busy farming, and at night she lit kerosene lamps and taught herself all kinds of books.
During that time, she often went hungry, drank rain with her parents, and had to light charcoal to keep warm in the winter.
However, Zhou Xiaolan was not defeated by the difficult environment, and she still maintained an optimistic attitude.
Zhou Xiaolan returned to Taiyuan with her parents in 1972. At that time she was 16 years old and had reached a height of 176 meters, which caught the attention of the sports school coach, so she was selected for the volleyball team to train.
Although Zhou Xiaolan started late, with her extraordinary talent and unwavering perseverance, she quickly became the main player of the team.
She always goes out of her way to try to make up for her shortcomings. Even though her teammates have long since returned home from training, she will stay on the field and practice alone until the end.
After Zhou Xiaolan was selected for the national team in 1979, she came to Chenzhou, Hunan Province with the team for high-intensity training.
The climate here is humid and rainy, and the training conditions are tough. The dormitory is simple and low, and there is even a rain leak, so everyone can only take the basin to collect the rain and sleep at night.
The team members were often punctured by wooden thorns because the floor in the hall was old and thick.
Zhou Xiaolan was once pierced with 13 wooden thorns in one day, which made her feel painful. When they wake up in the morning, they have to brave the rain to go to the training hall in their raincoats, and the muddy roads often leave them dirty.
Zhou Xiaolan and her teammates have no complaints, they silently endure the difficulties, and regard winning the championship as their responsibility.
Coach Yuan Weimin devotes all his time to training and endures hardships with his teammates.
The Chinese team finally defeated Japan in the final of the 1981 Women's Volleyball World Cup and won their first world championship.
The women of the whole team were heroic on the podium and cried with excitement, especially the captain Cao Huiying, the "Iron Girl" is 27 years old, and no matter how hard it is at this moment, it is worth it.
The female volleyball players went through hard training from Chenzhou to finally win the World Cup final, and they have endured many hardships, but they have always been tenacious.
After the game, the players hugged each other excitedly, tears and sweat intertwined.
The World Champion's victory was not just a win in one match, it was a victory in faith.
Cao Huiying is the big sister in this team, she is 27 years old, and her legs are still embedded with steel plates.
The team doctor advised her to suspend training because she suddenly felt an old injury** during a training session and the pain was unbearable.
Although she did not back down, she persevered and became a role model for her teammates. These tiny pains, she said, are insignificant in terms of national honor.
The Chinese team ushered in new blood at the 1982 World Championships, but the 0-3 defeat to the United States in the first game seemed to hint at a bleak future.
The coach held two emergency mobilization meetings in a row, with the sole goal of winning the championship. The players regained their morale and won all 6 games and finally won the championship, among which Zhou Xiaolan's stable performance contributed to the key to winning the championship.
At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the Chinese team set the goal of achieving "three consecutive championships". In the first game, the Chinese team faced the strong Japanese team after the replacement of the old and the new, and Zhou Xiaolan started the game and performed steadily, and finally won 3:0.
Zhou Xiaolan showed the ability to defend and attack in the final, and successfully assisted her teammates to score a decisive goal. The Chinese team finally defeated the United States team 3-0 and won the gold medal as they wished.
Zhou Xiaolan chose to say goodbye to the arena in 1985 at the age of 28.
She capped off her volleyball career with three glittering gold medals. In the same year, she and Hou Xiaofei, a member of the Bayi men's volleyball team, held a simple and grand wedding at the women's volleyball training base.
After getting married, the two chose to go to the Shanghai Sports Institute for further study and lived a collective dormitory life shared with others. One day, a water pipe burst suddenly, causing the hallway to fill with water.
Zhou Xiaolan did not hesitate to put herself into the front line, carefully carried out the restoration work, and finally successfully solved the flooding crisis, winning the praise of her roommates.
After graduating, she was assigned to work for the National Sports Commission, while her husband started a sports company in Beijing. Outside of work, they also enjoy family time. Zhou Xiaolan became a gentle and demure mother.
The defeat of the Chinese team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics caused a sensational and strong reaction.
In order to improve the level of players, Zhou Xiaolan has actively contacted commercial events. Although she finished eighth at the 1994 World Championships, some have questioned her for personal gain.
Because Zhou Xiaolan is the leader of the commercial event, and Hou Xiaofei's company is the organizer, her husband took the initiative to decide to end the business and go to the United States for development.
Zhou Xiaolan never flinched in the journey of marriage, even if she paid the price, which became a part of her growth.
Zhou Xiaolan has dedicated her youth and enthusiasm to the cause of volleyball, and since joining the National Sports Commission in 1988, she has been fully committed to the development and improvement of Chinese volleyball.
Zhou Xiaolan was promoted to deputy director of the ball department of the Sports Commission at the age of 37, which shows that she is diligent and accomplished.
The Chinese women's volleyball team fell into a slump after the defeat in Barcelona and the resignation of Li Xiaofeng. Zhou Xiaolan felt distressed, she ran around, and finally succeeded in saying that Coach Lang Ping returned to China to coach the women's volleyball team.
Due to various reasons, although Zhou Xiaolan originally planned to go to the airport to greet her in person, her superiors stopped this wish. In this regard, she could not let go of it, and finally decided to resign.
In the fall of 1995, Zhou Xiaolan took her daughter to the United States to reunite with Hou Xiaofei and started a new life.
She stood in the cabin, staring at the sea of clouds outside the window, with mixed feelings. On the one hand, she was indignant at the injustice in the women's volleyball career, and on the other hand, she was worried about what difficulties living in a foreign country would bring to her and her daughter.
Hou Xiaofei waited at the airport for a long time, until the moment when they hugged each other and burst into tears. They hadn't seen each other in days, so they felt more empathy for each other's affection.
Zhou Xiaolan found that the first few years of living in the United States did not go as smoothly as she imagined. She faced language barriers, cultural differences, and a longing for her homeland, all of which left her depressed.
However, she gradually adjusted her mentality and actively integrated into the new environment, not only to give her daughter a better way out, but also to help her husband's career.
She taught volleyball at college and later joined a medical company. Although she no longer participates in sports, she has always been concerned about the Chinese women's volleyball team.
Every year when she returns to China to visit her family, she reminisces about the hard times of the past. Sometimes, she would go to the training gym alone and watch the new generation of young players sweat profusely, often with tears in her eyes.
Zhou Xiaolan's two daughters are now adults.
Since she was a child, Zhou Xiaolan has communicated with her youngest daughter in Chinese, trying her best to instill in them the knowledge of Chinese culture and make them remember that they are Chinese, even though her youngest daughter was born in the United States.
The daughters not only excelled academically and morally, but also inherited their mother's love for volleyball and once represented the school team in competitions.
Zhou Xiaolan is reluctant to let her daughter represent foreign teams in international competitions because it goes against her national feelings.
They now have their home in Maryland, and Ms. Zhou is the head of a department at a medical device company in Edward.
Zhou Xiaolan is over sixty years old and has a happy life. She always pays attention to the development of sports in her motherland and is sincerely proud of the achievements of the Chinese women's volleyball team.
She has always remembered her Chinese identity in her heart and is proud of it.
The lives of her daughters also brought her endless joy and pride. Zhou Xiaolan's life has experienced many setbacks and ups and downs, but she has also reaped fruitful results. Through her own life experience, she proved that the spirit of the Chinese women's volleyball team will always shine with indelible light.