Our flight arrived in Guangzhou for the Asian Games at 11am Friday (Nov. 5th), and we all settled down at athlete Village around 4 in the afternoon. Village accommodations are pretty good. Only issue is that there is no TV and computer in our rooms. The internet access we can get is in the Games entertainment center. It will take a while for the coaches and athletes to get used to it. We believe such an arrangement from the Games organizing committee is to guarantee a well rested and focused game for the athletes.
6:30 pm, the team headed out for our training gym- Guangzhou Sports Training and Technical College (used to be known as Weilun Sports School)- which is one hour drive away from the village. The gym is also the training base for Guangzhou Gymnastics team. Once arrival, Yang Yilin was so excited, as this is her alma mater, which ingrained her most wonderful childhood memories. Through the familiar campus, here is the gym Yilin shed countless sweat and tears in. From her eyes, we can pretty much see training memories start to come back to her. Polite as she always is, Yilin-now a Olympic Champ- greets her old coaches. During our spare time from training , her old coaches sat with us and shared some old stories about our little Yilin. Not only did the coach tell us what a crying baby little Yilin was, they also pointed out the exact spot Yiling used to stand when crying. We can easily picture a skinny girl standing all alone over there, tears in her eyes, sobbing with tears flowing down the cheeks. Yang Yilin is indeed known as a crying gymnast. It was not until she got into national team that it became all better. We joked to make Yilin cry once more time during this Asian Games, so that we can all see what a crying baby she really is. From a little crying girl to our Olympic champ, only Yilin knows how much hard work it involved in such a metamorphosis. In the next two weeks time, Yilin will certainly treat her hometown and nurturing alma mater with her excellent performance and results from the Asian Games.
Note, Guanzhou, hosting city of 16th Asian Games, is Yang Yilin’s hometown.
Gymnastics training milestones of Yilin(Born in August 26th 1992)
1997-7/1999, trained in Huadu Sports School, Huadu(district), Guangzhou, Guangdong
7/1999-3/2003, trained in Weilun sports school, Guangzhou, Guangdong
3/2003-1/2007, member Guangdong Provincial Team
1/2007- member of Chinese National WAG Team
Yilin is known for her pencil-straight handstand and "textbook pirouette" on the Uneven bars.
Yang Yilin Tribute by IRunFastest
No comments:
Post a Comment