Figure skating competition consists of two parts: short program and free skating. Players need to complete a specified number of difficult moves within a specified time, and the scores of the last two parts are added to rank. Compared with shooting or equestrian, figure skating, a sport that requires athletes' physical fitness, is definitely not a sport with long professional life. Zhang Hao's persistence can be said to be awe-inspiring.
At the peak of the development of figure skating pairs in China, the national team consisted of three pairs of disciples-Shen Xue/Zhao Hongbo, Pang Qing/Tong Jian and Zhang Dan/Zhang Hao. Because Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao are the youngest of the three couples, ice fans affectionately call them "the third". At that time, all three of them were capable of participating in international competitions.
According to Zhang Hao, although he has participated in the Winter Olympics for five times, he is still young because he made his debut very early. Zhang Haoyu was born in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province, on 1984. He began to learn figure skating at the age of four and received professional training at the age of eight. 1998, he and Zhang Dan started pair skating.
At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Zhang Hao, aged 18, and Zhang Dan, the same age, went hand in hand. When the whole country was immersed in Yang Yang's breakthrough in achieving zero gold medal in the Winter Olympics for the China Winter Olympics delegation, Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao made their debut in the Winter Olympics with the first place 1 1. Four years later, when Zhang stepped into the Olympic Games again, he was no longer a fledgling athlete.
In the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, they are already a pair of athletes who can hit medals or even gold medals. To this end, under the background music of free skating "Descendants of the Dragon", they took out their own killer weapon-throwing it around and jumping.
But due to the lack of weeks, Zhang Dan fell. After the fall, the game stopped for a few minutes. After a brief treatment of the injury, Zhang Hao pulled Zhang Dan and limped Zhang Dan back to the venue. This has also become an epic scene in the Olympic Games. In the end, they won the runner-up in the Winter Olympics, which was the best result of figure skating in China at that time.
In 20 10, Zhang Hao boarded the Olympic Games for the third time. At this time, he and Zhang Dan have been runners-up in three World Championships. However, Zhang Hao, who returned to the Olympic Games, made a mistake in the competition and finally won the fifth place, which witnessed the Chinese dream of the "boss" Shen Xue/Zhao Hongbo. After the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Zhang Dan announced his retirement.
After Zhang Dan retired, Zhang Hao did not choose to retire. Because for him, his goal has not been achieved. However, the choice of partners has become a big problem. First, there is a shortage of figure skating talents in China, and second, if a female partner is selected from the existing pair skaters, the other pair of skaters will be split directly.
After comprehensive consideration, Zhang Hao, who continued his career, began to partner with his female companion Cheng Peng, who was twelve years younger than him. Although they won the Grand Prix in China a year later, they were still "newcomers" when they set foot on the Olympic Games.
In the first three Olympic Games that Zhang Hao participated in, his goal was to win an Olympic medal, but at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, his goal became "successfully completing the competition". Competitive sports is so cruel that it never increases the slightest sympathy because of the "difficulties" of athletes. In this Olympic Games, they won the eighth place in pairs skating and the seventh place in the team.
20 16 April, the national team decided to swap Zhang Hao and yangjin, and Zhang Hao held hands with Yu Xiaoyu, and everything went back to the starting point. After the announcement of this decision, it once caused bad public opinion. In the face of doubt, Zhang Hao chose silence, and then proved himself with his own achievements. Partner with Yu Xiaoyu for one year and win the 20 17 Asian Winter Games, the fourth place in the World Championships and the second place in the domestic grand prix.
At the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, Yu Xiaoyu, who participated in the competition for the first time, made three mistakes, which led to their final score of 128.52 and missed the medal in advance. In fact, we have only been holding hands for two years, and we must understand both mistakes and achievements.
Originally, Zhang Hao, who participated in five Winter Olympics, would choose Pyeongchang to retire. After all, almost all his contemporaries dropped out of the competition. However, for the sake of her favorite skating career, Zhang Hao has been working hard and persisting. Zhang Hao, who started figure skating in the Capital Gymnasium from 65438 to 0998, wants to finish his career in the Capital Gymnasium in 2022.
Despite his advanced age, Zhang Hao still maintains his physical condition through scientific training and a high degree of self-discipline. He will always be the first player to arrive at the training ground. Although he also has injuries that every athlete will have, injuries are not an excuse for his poor performance.
Although I haven't seen Zhang Hao appear on the field for some time, he replied to netizens on his social platform that he "just recovered from injury and didn't retire". Today, Zhang Hao is not only an athlete, but also a father and husband (his wife is not Zhang Dan, but Ju Chi, a fellow villager who got married on 20 14 and worked in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse for more than ten years). He just finished his master's degree and became a special teacher of Beijing Sport University. Anyway, I wish veteran Zhang Hao all the best.