The national table tennis team has always been the pride of the Chinese people. Compared with the bumpy development history of the men's table tennis team, the women's table tennis team seems to have always been on top of the world, except for one loss to Singapore at the World T

The national table tennis team has always been the pride of the Chinese people.

Compared with the bumpy development history of the men's table tennis team, the women's table tennis team seems to have always been on top of the world, except for losing to Singapore once at the World Table Tennis Championships in Moscow.

Deng Yaping, Wang Nan, and Zhang Yining were all the most dazzling stars of the women's table tennis team of that era.

These people have one thing in common. They have all achieved Grand Slam glory in terms of honor.

Therefore, these people have a particularly loud reputation among fans.

However, there is such an athlete who is also a Grand Slam winner and the leader of the women's table tennis team.

But her reputation is far less than that of the previous ones, and even the Guo Yue and Ding Ning of the period are slightly inferior.

This person is Li Xiaoxia , who was once the absolute leader of the women's table tennis team.

is obviously also a Grand Slam winner, but why is her fame far less than that of her predecessors.

Looking at Li Xiaoxia’s career, maybe we can understand the reason?

01

In June 1988, Li Xiaoxia was born in a family in Anshan, Liaoning Province.

In this Anshan City with a strong table tennis atmosphere, Li Xiaoxia did not start learning to play until she was 7 years old.

This is a full year later than her teammate "genius girl" Guo Yue.

Even though it was just one year, made the two people's careers completely different.

When she first started training, Li Xiaoxia showed great talent.

In three years, she quickly grew into a seed player in the team. She could win steadily no matter who she competed against, except Guo Yue.

No matter how Li Xiaoxia played at that time, only beat Guo Yue very few times.

In 1998, because of her outstanding talent, she was recommended to train with the Shandong Sports Team.

Li Xiaoxia, who has been accustomed to Northeastern rice since she was a child, is very uncomfortable with the local eating habits.

This also made her develop a particularly bad habit. She won’t eat if she doesn’t want to eat, and she will eat if she wants to.

If you don’t fill your stomach, your energy and energy will definitely decrease.

Fortunately, there are many fellow villagers around me, under the care of the coach and Guo Yue.

Li Xiaoxia gradually adapted to the life here, and her energy and spirit quickly recovered.

people were fine, but at this time, there was a big problem in her sports career.

At that time, Guo Yue was hailed as a "genius girl", no matter what kind of competition the team held.

She is firmly sitting in the number one position without wavering at all.

Li Xiaoxia always ranks second and has always lived under Guo Yue's halo.

The greatest wealth that competitive sports brings to people is not convinced and unwilling to admit defeat.

always lost to Guo Yue, which made Li Xiaoxia very unconvinced, and she began to work extra hard in training.

During training every day, she always used up her last bit of strength before going back to rest.

's masochistic training method made Li Xiaoxia known as "madman" at that time.

Such a hard and hard training method, soon paid off, and the results against Guo Yue got better every time.

Under such a severe crisis, Guo Yue did not feel careless at all, and his concentration on training was increasing day by day.

The two of them are chasing after each other, and their respective skills have been greatly improved.

The two people who worked extremely hard quickly turned their efforts into competition results. Guo Yue successfully won the championship in a national competition in 1999, and Li Xiaoxia won the third place.

Therefore, the two were called to the national team one after another and began a new journey in their lives.

Here Guo Yue's flying personality and extremely hot playing style quickly emerged, but Li Xiaoxia quickly became immersed in it.

02

Li Xiaoxia, who joined the national first team in 2002, met the noble man of her life - Li Xun.

At that time, he had two main players, Wang Nan and Zhang Yining, and did not have much time to devote to Li Xiaoxia.

However, she did not feel sorry for herself and still worked hard to complete every day's training.

In the same year, Li Xiaoxia won the singles championship at the National Championships. She had just turned 14 years old at the time.

Such outstanding results are rare among the talented national table tennis team.

But she was never favored by others. In the 2004 World Table Tennis Championships in Doha, the coaches gave Guo Yue the opportunity to compete.

did not choose the equally outstanding Li Xiaoxia.

This made her very frustrated, and her always positive and enterprising attitude began to show signs of deviation.

At that time, not only was Li Xiaoxia mentally depressed for a long time, but her physical condition was also not very good. Repeated high fevers severely reduced the quality of her training.

At this time, Li Xuan, the head coach, did not give her any blood to keep her going.

instead put her back into the provincial team to take good care of her health and come back to participate in training.

As long as people can persevere through the trough period, people will generally explode with unprecedented fighting power.

This is the case for Li Xiaoxia. In 2005, she completely restored her health and returned to the competition, becoming extremely threatening.

Her playing style is already fierce, and she is the only player on the women's team who plays in a masculine style.

Therefore, after his body completely recovered, he became particularly impactful on the court.

At that time, no matter how powerful the players were in domestic competitions, she would have a headache.

Domestic athletes are very reluctant to cope with it, let alone foreign players.

Even though Li Xiaoxia had such a strong impact, she was still firmly suppressed by Guo Yue.

From 2005 to 2008, these three years were a very critical period of preparation.

All athletes are making the final sprint for the Olympic Games at their doorstep.

Li Xiaoxia, however, was not in a hurry. She followed her own steps and walked up one step at a time.

's mentality of not being affected by the outside world means that her condition is very stable.

As long as he continues, he will definitely get his own opportunity. In 2007, Li Xiaoxia's opportunity came.

In the open competition held by Qatar this year, withstood the pressure and defeated Wang Nan in the decisive game of the final and won the championship.

In the World Table Tennis Championships of the same year, she and Zhang Yining won the doubles championship together.

With two world championships in her hands, she finally showed her own glory at that time.

When she thought she would be able to successfully enter the Beijing Olympics, she was knocked to the ground by Guo Yue in the finals of the World Table Tennis Championships when she was on the rise at the time.

This defeat caused a huge change in Li Xiaoxia's originally good mentality.

also missed the opportunity to compete in the 2008 Olympics. Unfortunately, she only received a p-card.

From then on, Li Xiaoxia began to fear the competition. No matter who she played, the injury would definitely appear on her the day before the competition.

At that time, the national table tennis women's team was leaderless, Zhang Yining and Wang Nan retired one after another, and Guo Yue's state was ups and downs. was a good opportunity for her to show off her talents.

However, injuries trapped Li Xiaoxia in place and could not move.

Coach Li Xuan was so worried about her that he took her to all the major hospitals across the country.

As a result, Li Xiaoxia will still have various injuries and problems the day before the game.

Gradually, coach Li Xun realized whether Li Xiaoxia's own mentality had changed.

Later, no matter how big or small the game was, as long as his apprentice played, he would carefully observe the changes in mood on Li Xiaoxia's face, and whenever he appeared a little timid.

Coach Li Xuan would always force her to play with a straight face, no matter how unwilling she was, forcing her to play the game.

Under this almost "impersonal" guidance, Li Xiaoxia's mentality was adjusted little by little, and injuries were quickly reduced a lot.

's performance in the competition is getting better and better, and its status is becoming more and more eye-catching.

Just when people thought she could become the first sister of the new generation of female table tennis, Ding Ning became a new difficulty in her life.

03

At that time, Ding Ning had already experienced his transformation after losing the World Table Tennis Championships in Moscow.

At that time, no matter what kind of competition Li Xiaoxia played, as long as she met Ding Ning, most of them would end in losing.

This time she was not depressed because of this, but instead became more and more competitive.

On weekdays, he does not actively ask for more training. He will watch game videos in private.

will not miss every detail, and will analyze every ball lost carefully.

The streets at one or two o'clock in the morning were the most familiar scenes to her at that time.

After training day after day, Li Xiaoxia's already excellent level began to improve again.

At the 2012 London Olympics, everyone was optimistic about Ding Ning winning the championship before the game. believed that she would be able to complete the fastest women's Grand Slam feat here.

Unexpectedly, Li Xiaoxia easily won the game 4:1 in a nearly crushing state and won the Olympic gold medal.

Four years ago, she was still a PC player who could only sit in the stands and watch the game.

Four years later, she stood on the podium where her senior sister Zhang Yining once stood, accepting the praise and blessings of others.

No one knew how Li Xiaoxia was feeling at that time. They only knew that her eyes were red with excitement.

Compared with her fellow seniors Zhang Yining and Wang Nan, Li Xiaoxia appears to be exceptionally ordinary.

is inferior to these two in terms of mentality, is not as flexible as Wang Nan in terms of playing skills, and is not as fierce as Zhang Yining in terms of playing style.

She was inferior to others in every aspect, but she was able to become the fourth Grand Slam winner. She relied on her own efforts bit by bit.

No one is born strong. As long as you work hard and don’t give up, you can become strong. This is the case with Li Xiaoxia.

In 2016, after she helped her team win the team gold medal in Rio, she announced her retirement and marriage.

’s premature retirement and her short peak moment have made Li Xiaoxia’s reputation not very great.

Many people even have the impression of her as the "weak woman" who often got sick a few years ago.

She didn't care about these false reputations. Li Xiaoxia disappeared from people's sight soon after leaving the competition.

Former Grand Slam winners Zhang Yining, Wang Nan and Deng Yaping still appear in the commentary box from time to time. even has their presence in the training of the new generation of players.

On the other hand, Li Xiaoxia rarely appears here. She can only be seen in the two fields of charity and public welfare.

Now, at the age of 34, she entered the ITTF job on the recommendation of Liu Guoliang.

I believe that in the near future, we will see Li Xiaoxia on more occasions.

Conclusion

Looking through her career, difficulties and troughs have always been with her.

She has always been strong and never gave up. She faced constant difficulties until she won.

This may be the sportsmanship that has been advocated before. hopes that each of us can show sportsmanship when facing troughs and difficulties and fight until the end until victory.