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In the mixed doubles final of the Paris Olympics, the Chinese team Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong defeated the Korean team and won the first gold medal for the Chinese team. After the award ceremony, Huang Yaqiong's boyfriend Liu Yuchen proposed to Huang Yaqiong, receiving double blessings from netizens across the country.

On the evening of August 13, Olympic champion Huang Yaqiong, her college coach Zou Shisi, and veteran sports blogger Ying Xian were guests in the Jiupai News live broadcast room, leading netizens to review the Paris Olympic journey.

At the beginning of the live broadcast, Zou Shisi and Yingxian analyzed China's winning situation in this Olympics and expressed their respective views.

Huang Yaqiong is online in the Jiupai News live broadcast room. Photo/Jiupai News

At 9 pm, Huang Yaqiong went live in the live broadcast room. She said that although she and her partner Zheng Siwei defeated South Korea with a big advantage of 2-0 to win the gold medal, they also encountered many difficulties in the process. She called her group the "death group" and said, "In fact, our groups are all relatively strong." Fortunately, she and Zheng Siwei made a full and detailed preparation plan before the game. "Even if we encountered some difficulties, we still trusted each other."

Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong duo at the Paris Olympics. Photo/People's Daily

In fact, at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Huang Yaqiong and Zheng Siwei won the silver medal in the mixed doubles badminton. "I felt very sorry for winning the silver medal. At that time, Siwei and I decided to go to Paris together again."

Since missing out on the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, Huang Yaqiong has worked tirelessly for this belated gold medal. Talking about the journey from a "silver medal" to a "gold medal," Huang Yaqiong said in the live broadcast room that after losing at the Olympics and the National Games, the two of them became less confident, their trust in their teammates also declined, and the two of them were not particularly coordinated on the court. So the coach separated the two for training and re-paired them with different partners. "I think these difficulties, as well as the splitting of the team, made us more cohesive, so after the splitting of the team, we won many championships and achieved peak results that we had not achieved before."

Huang Yaqiong accepted her boyfriend's proposal. Photo/People's Daily

Now that Huang Yaqiong has won the gold medal, her personal life has also been a great success. After the award ceremony, Huang Yaqiong's boyfriend Liu Yuchen proposed to her on one knee with flowers in his hands. She gladly accepted and put the ring on her left ring finger. Recalling the proposal scene, Huang Yaqiong smiled and said, "At that time, they were all celebrating my victory, and I suddenly saw a familiar figure holding flowers over there. I felt that it was still quite a surprise."

Coach Zou Shisi. Photo/Jiupai News

It is worth mentioning that both Huang Yaqiong and Zheng Siwei have a deep connection with Wuhan. They are respectively alumni of the School of Public Administration of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) in 2015 and 2017. Zou Shisi, who was a guest in the live broadcast room with Huang Yaqiong this time, was their coach when they were in school.

Zou Shisi felt that the most exciting match of the Olympics was the match between Huang Yaqiong and Zheng Siwei, especially the group match against France. They played 84 consecutive shots to reverse the French host country and successfully advanced. Zou Shisi was moved to tears. "You are the pride of the University of Geosciences! You are welcome to come back to your alma mater often in the future and spread the Olympic spirit to the students of the University of Geosciences."

Huang Yaqiong is also very grateful to Teacher Zou. "Teacher Zou is a teacher who cares about students very much. At that time, we were training with the national team a lot and didn't have much time to go back to school for classes, but Teacher Zhou always coordinated class time for us and provided various help."

An alumnus of the China University of Geosciences who had taken classes from Coach Zou recalled to the reporter that Coach Zou was quite capable and dashing, and had his own teaching style.

Talking about what she has gained from practicing badminton for so many years, Huang Yaqiong said: "I think what badminton has brought me is that I will not back down even if I encounter difficulties in life. Instead, I will consider from many aspects how to solve the problems or difficulties, which also makes me more confident." Now that the Paris Olympics has come to an end, Huang Yaqiong's badminton journey has not stopped. She plans to take a break for a while, and her immediate goal is to participate in the (HSBC BWF World Tour) finals in Hangzhou at the end of the year.


Zhang Weijie, intern reporter at Jiupai News
Edited by Yang Dan

[Source: Jiupai News]