In 1971, China welcomed the visit of the U.S. table tennis team in the form of ping-pong diplomacy, the first time since the founding of the People's Republic of China that Americans were allowed to enter China. This incident had a far-reaching impact on Sino-US relations, and was historically known as "a small ball pushing a big ball" and promoted the process of normalization of Sino-US relations.
This table tennis diplomacy has made table tennis a household name in China, because playing table tennis only requires a pair of rackets and a table, and the requirements for venues and equipment are relatively low, which has set off a wave of table tennis fever across the country for a while.
In this kind of table tennis boom with the participation of the whole people, many outstanding table tennis players have emerged in my country, including many outstanding players from ordinary families who change their destiny through table tennis.
For example, Lu Lin, the champion of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, is an outstanding athlete who changed his life through table tennis.
Lu Lin was born in 1969 in a small seaside village in Wenling, Taizhou, Zhejiang, where his parents lived as rural teachers. From an early age, he grew up with his parents in a local village school, and these experiences became an integral part of his life.
Lu Lin recalls that because of the difficult environment at that time, the school's sports equipment was very limited, and there was only a table tennis table made of cement. His father bought a racket for this purpose, which allowed Lu Lin to embark on the road of table tennis enlightenment.
The conditions of the rural school were poor, and there was no teacher who specialized in teaching table tennis, so Lu Lin's father even went to the county seat to find a table tennis coach, borrowed a table tennis textbook, and rubbed it down as his basic teaching materials.
With his own hard work and talent, Lu Lin left his parents at the age of 6 and entered a sports school to study, and began a life of playing and studying at the same time.
When Lu Lin was a child, his family was not in good condition and he often couldn't afford to buy sneakers. For training, he often goes barefoot. The summer was fine, but the winter wind was biting, frostbiting his hands, and even affected the grip of the racket.
But none of this can shake his determination to train hard. After years of training and selection, his table tennis skills have become more and more sophisticated, from Wenling step by step to the provincial sports school, the provincial team, and then to the national second team.
In 1988, he finally became a member of the national first team, one step closer to achieving his dream of becoming a world champion.
Lu Lin, an excellent table tennis player, has always been among the best in the provincial team with his solid basic skills and extraordinary talent. However, when he entered the national team full of talents, he fell into the dilemma of "bias", his singles ability was slightly lacking, and he ranked last in the team all year round.
Despite this, his doubles results have remained excellent. The era when Lu Lin played was a period when Chinese table tennis fell into a trough. In the team event of the 1989 World Championships, the Chinese team lost badly.
In 1991, the Chinese team only finished 7th in the World Table Tennis Championships, which was a rare fiasco in the history of national table tennis. However, it was in this year that Lu Lin and Wang Tao partnered for the first time in the World Championships and achieved a good result of second place, which became the best performance in the men's event that year.
The duo of Lu Lin and Wang Tao successfully qualified for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics with their outstanding strength and performance. They were the most competitive gold medal point in Chinese men's table tennis at that time, and in the game, they also showed strong strength, all the way to the final, and their opponent was the German team.
However, their road to gold was not without its challenges. On the day of the final, they had planned to arrive early to acclimatize to the venue, but due to the delay of the Olympic shuttle, they arrived at the venue only half an hour before the start of the competition.
This sudden situation almost made them feel like they had given up the tournament automatically and were disqualified. Lu Lin recalled that because Spain was very close to Germany, many German fans came to the scene at that time, and the audience was particularly loud, which gave them a lot of psychological pressure.
He described that their hands were shaking during the initial swing, whether they were serving or picking up a cup to drink. However, they eventually overcame the pressure and defeated Germany with a 3-2 record to win the Olympic gold medal, which was also the only gold medal for the Chinese men's table tennis team at that Olympics.
From a cement table in the countryside to an Olympic champion, Lu Lin has made his dream come true. He was the first Olympic gold medalist in the history of table tennis in Zhejiang Province and the proudest moment of his life.
The combination of Lu Lin and Wang Tao won the men's doubles championship in two World Table Tennis Championships, and their combination reached its peak. However, at the Atlanta Olympics, they lost to Liu Guoliang and Kong Linghui and only won the silver medal.
Despite this, Lu Lin said that they have achieved the goal of the national team, which is not to lose to foreigners in international competitions. After this competition, Chinese table tennis came out of the trough, and a group of outstanding athletes like Liu Guoliang and Kong Linghui appeared in the national team.
Lu Lin also chose to retire in 1997.
Lu Lin originally planned to coach the national team, but in order to adjust physically and mentally and summarize the gains and losses of his sports career, he chose to take a year or two off abroad. Table tennis agreed to his request and arranged for him to teach at a club in Hiroshima, Japan.
In Japan, Lu Lin enjoyed a high quality of living conditions and lived with his family. However, more than a year later, a ** asked Lu Lin to immediately pack his luggage and return to Beijing.
It turned out that Liu Guoliang was caught in a doping turmoil, and the entire national team was shrouded in haze. Although the ITTF later rehabilitated Liu Guoliang, it was not easy for him to recover his competitive form.
At the critical moment, head coach Cai Zhenhua remembered the positive and optimistic Lu Lin, although his performance in singles has not been ideal, but this has not affected his performance in doubles.
Therefore, Cai Zhenhua hopes that Lu Lin can boost Liu Guoliang's mental state. After receiving the call of the motherland, Lu Lin immediately embarked on the road back to China. Since his contract with the Japanese club allowed him to end at any time, it took him just a week to return to the Beijing national team.
Although Lu Lin had lost to Liu Guoliang in the game, he still dutifully cared for and cared for him as a coach. This made the lonely Liu Guoliang feel warm.
At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Liu Guoliang won the third place and bronze medal, which was also a return to his competitive form. Later, due to the internal adjustment of the national team, Lu Lin became the head coach of the second team of the women's team.
Many well-known players of Chinese women's table tennis, such as Ding Ning, Liu Shiwen, etc., have been his **. In 2006, Zhejiang Sports Vocational and Technical College was established, and Lu Lin decided to return to his hometown to take up his post and make his own contribution to the sports cause in Zhejiang Province.
From the director of the small ball department of the college to the deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Sports Bureau, Lu Lin has indeed made his own contributions to the sports industry in Zhejiang Province.
Lu Lin and his wife Wan Fangfang's fate began with myocarditis caused by a cold. At that time, Lu Lin's care for Wan Fangfang made her feel warm and caring, and the relationship between the two sprouted and moved towards a sweet relationship.
Wan Fangfang was also a table tennis player of the Zhejiang Provincial Team and was known as Lu Lin's "little junior sister".
In 1995, the joy of the World Table Tennis Championships doubles championship brought Lu Lin and his heart partner into the palace of marriage; In 1996, the Olympic silver medal gave Lu Lin a lovely son, Lu Xiang.
Under the influence of his father, Lu Xiang has developed a strong interest in table tennis since he was a child, which also made him follow his father's old path and start his own table tennis career.
In the table tennis circle, there are not many children who "inherit their father's business", and Lu Xiang is one of the special representatives. He said that he has not played against his father Lu Lin, and his idol is Chen Xi, because they are both left-handed horizontal shots, playing the same style, and he hopes that he can also win the world championship and Olympic championship like them.
In 2010, in the Chinese table tennis A competition, the 14-year-old Lu Xiang and Li Ping fought to the deciding set, and finally lost due to lack of experience.
In 2012, at the age of 16, Lu Xiang was selected for the national second team, and it was from here that his father set off to finally realize his dream of becoming a world champion. Two years later, 18-year-old Lu Xiang won the men's doubles championship with Wang Hao at the German Open on the World Table Tennis Federation Tour, reaching the pinnacle of honor and adding to his goal.
However, the road of his career has not become smoother because of this, and Lu Xiang's achievements are difficult to break through, and he has never been able to stand out in the highly competitive national team.
Originally, the main lineup of the national team was quite strong, Zhang Jike, Ma Long, Xu Xin, Wang Hao and other players were outstanding, and the young players such as Fan Zhendong who followed were also opponents that should not be underestimated.
In this situation, Lu Xiang's ability and grades appeared relatively mediocre, so he chose to focus on his studies and continue to play in the club. Lu Lin is very understanding and supportive of Lu Xiang's decision, and he emphasized that the most important thing is that his son can be happy, rather than forcing him to win the championship.
2021 is another Olympic year, and a netizen shared a signed photo of Lu Lin on social **, which was when Lu Lin was the Olympic torchbearer in 2008**, which triggered everyone's good memories of Lu Lin.
Nowadays, there are still a lot of news about Lu Lin on the Internet: he is already the vice chairman of the Zhejiang Disabled Persons' Federation and a member of the party group of the Zhejiang Provincial Sports Bureau.
Lu Lin firmly believes that the excellent habits and ways of thinking developed during his time as an athlete have also benefited him in management work. He said that a good athlete must be able to endure hardships, be conscientious and strive for perfection, and these concepts are also applicable to management and have provided him with a lot of inspiration.
Lu Lin has made a lot of efforts in the sports industry in Zhejiang, he often participates in various sports activities, gives interviews, and encourages more young people to join sports to expand the influence of competitive sports.
In an interview, Lu Lin mentioned that in recent years, Zhejiang's competitive sports are experiencing a period of rapid development, and this situation is the result of the long-term accumulation of generations of sports people in Zhejiang.
In the more than 30 years since New China resumed its Olympic qualifications, 13 Zhejiang athletes who have won glory for the country have won a total of 20 gold medals for the Chinese Olympic delegation, making Zhejiang one of the few provinces in the country that has won gold medals in all previous Olympic Games.
At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Zhejiang players once again lived up to expectations and won the gold medal for the Chinese team, further confirming that the hard work of Lu Lin and others was not in vain.
In August, Lu Lin returned to his hometown of Wenling to visit coaches and athletes who were actively preparing for the National Games. Judging from the ** published on the Internet, although Lu Lin has entered middle age, he has not gained weight and still maintains a good figure, which is obviously closely related to his former sports career.
Unfortunately, even Olympic champions are not immune to middle-aged hair loss. It can be seen from the ** that Lu Lin's hair has become thinner and is no longer as dense as when he was young.
However, this did not affect his attention to Zhejiang's sports career and the Hangzhou Asian Games. In October 2021, he visited the Zhejiang Sports Finance Center with Tokyo Olympic gold medalists Yang Qian, Wang Shun and others.
In November of the same year, he resigned from the post of deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Sports Bureau and became the vice chairman of the Zhejiang Disabled Persons' Federation, starting a new career.
Since taking office, Lu Lin has always been concerned about the education and psychological problems of the disabled in Zhejiang Province. In January 2022, he also accompanied Vice Governor Wang Wenxu to Wencheng County to investigate the common prosperity of the disabled.
During the investigation, they had an in-depth understanding of the services for the disabled in Wencheng County, and hoped that the "Home for the Disabled", a project that benefits the people, could truly improve the happiness and satisfaction of the disabled and open up the "last mile" of services for the disabled.
In addition, the research team also conducted an in-depth survey of enterprises that provide jobs for the disabled, emphasizing that policy support for welfare enterprises should be strengthened to achieve stable employment for the disabled and ensure that they can also achieve the goal of "common prosperity".
No matter when and where, Lu Lin has always maintained a hard-working and dedicated attitude, and this pursuit of perfection began in his career as an athlete and has not changed to this day.
From the small fishing village of Wenling to the peak of the Olympic Games, and then to the provincial management position, Lu Lin has realized his self-worth step by step with an optimistic and positive attitude and the spirit of hardship and hard work, and has also changed the trajectory of his life in the process.