Meanwhile in China …
After winter training comes… a check in with the Chinese team during the spring training.
If you can help translate that would be great.
Update: Translation & Summary thanks to Bruce, Wally and Victor.
The first half of the video is summarizing what was mentioned in the previous two videos, how National team split off into two for winter training.
The group from Hainan (Lu, Liao, Tian, Long) have already returned, while the group in Fujian has another week to go. The camp is saying that they’re recovered from previous competition and injuries.
Tian even says it’s probably his best winter of training.
There are the National Championships in ZheJiang on 4/24/15, and the winners of these will be the first choices to go to Worlds in 2014.
They then talk about how this year and next year will help determine the 6 spots for men and 4 spots for women for 2016. Then some talk about how now people have to lift for themselves now.
They also talked about how in the past for slots it would only be the team (regardless of athlete) to get the slots. Now, in this 14-16 cycle, the athletes that want to compete in the Olympics have to do two major events.
Translation from Victor:
Liao Hui and Lu Xiaojun have regained form and Long Qingquan has returned to his strongest form (not sure if the reporter fudged this one up but it seems off since in the last video, Yujie said Long had recovered to his finest form with 2/3 winter training left so I feel Long should be easily beyond his best form now).
Tian Tao personally said that it was his best winter training ever as he had made several major breakthroughs in all important aspects including strength. He said that he won’t over-think the competition since he’s very confident that if he can perform in competition as he did in training, “there won’t be any problems whatsoever.”
The statement is extremely bold and most can interpret him as saying nobody has a chance against him unless he screws himself up.
The reporter says the April nationals will determine the first choice for the November worlds and both this and next year’s performances would be taken into account for Rio.
Yu Jie said that under new IWF regulations, weightlifters have to attend two international competitions (between Olympic cycles) to qualify for the next Olympics.
Update 28.03.2015: Some kind of test event for the women.
Translation by Victor:
There was a test of strength for the women’s team. Deng Wei and Xiang Yanmei were especially excellent but most team members have returned to the heights of their strength, with some making breakthroughs.
Tian Yuan is still not in form and did not participate. Zhou Lulu is completely screwed as she came down with appendicitis and is recovering from her surgery. She most probably won’t appear on stage this year (I assume from what they say).
Kang Yue has also recovered and is in form again.
Women’s head coach Wang Guoxin has noted that the success rate during this test event was sub-par but that is not the important thing as here, he just wanted to see their potential power.
The next steps in training will be improving their consistency before they compete late April.
tian tao looks like a korean in his new hairdo hahaha
It reminds me a little of Long actually
My chinese isn’t amazing enough to give a full translation, but the first half of the video is summarizing what was mentioned in the previous two videos, how National team split off into two for winter training. The group from Hainan( Lu, Liao, Tian, Long) have already returned, while the group in Fujian has another week to go. The camp is saying that they’re recovered from previous competition and injuries, and Tian even says it’s probably his best winter of training. There’s a National(?) meet in ZheJiang on 4/24/15, and the winners of these will be the first choices to go to Worlds in 2014. They then talk about how this year and next year will help determine the 6 spots for men and 4 spots for women for 2016. Then some talk about how now people have to lift for themselves now yada yada.
Thanks Bruce!
Yes, their national championships are in April.
They also talked about how in the past for slots it would only be the team (regardless of athlete) to get the slots. Now, in this 14-16 cycle, the athletes that want to compete in the Olympics have to do two major events. Victor’s Chinese is better than mine, but I think that’s what I took away from it.
Thanks, added that part.
Okey dokey, so what haven’t these 2 fellas covered? Liao Hui and Lu Xiaojun have regained form and Long Qingquan has returned to his strongest form (not sure if the reporter fudged this one up but it seems off since in the last video, Yujie said Long had recovered to his finest form with 2/3 winter training left so I feel Long should be easily beyond his best form now). Tian Tao personally said that it was his best winter training ever as he had made several major breakthroughs in all important aspects including strength. He said that he won’t over-think the competition since he’s very confident that if he can perform in competition as he did in training, “there won’t be any problems whatsoever.” The statement is extremely bold and most can interpret him as saying nobody has a chance against him unless he screws himself up. The reporter says the April nationals will determine the first choice for the November worlds and both this and next year’s performances would be taken into account for Rio. YuJie says you can’t miss either this or next year’s Nationals if you wanna qualify for Rio, signalling that Lu Xiaojun and Liao Hui may not get anymore free passes (not said explicitly).
Now that I think about it, Tian Tao’s aggressive statement made no mention of which competition he would have “no problems whatsoever” winning so it’s possible he was just referring to the April Nationals, which is no stretch at all. I don’t know what kinda monstrous numbers he’d have to have put up in Hainan to give him that kind of qualified arrogance over the likes of Rostami, Markov, Okulov and Aukhadov. Anyway, it’s unclear which competition he was referring to so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Wouldn’t be surprised if he put up 175/220. All he needs is a little bit of luck and to be stable in bottom position.
He’s definitely capable of that. 175 kg wasn’t far off at the previous World’s, and he’s done 218 kg in competition, 220 kg in training.
I hope he and the rest of the 85 kg field stay healthy to Rio. It could be a great competition there.
I’m sorry; I have to edit this. Yujie did not say that you had to attend both nationals up to 2016 to qualify for Rio; he said that under new IWF regulations, weightlifters had to attend two international competitions (between Olympic cycles) to qualify for the next Olympics. This was not to say that Chinese athletes had to attend both Nationals to qualify. I thought that was a strange thing to do because China should have no problems giving exemplary athletes like Lu Xiaojun and Liao Hui additional rest from (since they’re getting old) if it almost guaranteed they could perform better internationally. It would be unusual given China’s style to impose rules that may hinder national achievement in favor of equality amongst its athletes.
Second video: There was a test of strength for the women’s team. Deng Wei and Xiang Yanmei were especially excellent but most team members have returned to the heights of their strength, with some making breakthroughs. Tian Yuan is still not in form and did not participate. Zhou Lulu is completely screwed as she came down with appendicitis and is recovering from her surgery. She most probably won’t appear on stage this year (I assume from what they say). Women’s head coach Wang Guoxin has noted that the success rate during this test event was sub-par but that is not the important thing as here, he just wanted to see their potential power. The next steps in training will be improving their consistency before they compete late April.
Thanks!
Oh, yes, Kang Yue has also recovered and is in form again. They also opened with a joke: “Any weightlifting competition where world champion Tian Yuan qualifies only as the weight adder promises to be top notch.” LOL
Thanks! That’s interesting and unfortunate with Zhou. Guess we won’t see her in 2016 then since she missing so much training, she already has a Gold and it’s all about aiming for four titles with the Chinese and with Kashirina’s results they had a setback. They did the same with Mu Shuangshuang in 2008 since they weren’t sure she would win against Jang Miran.
Also don’t like that Tian is still injured. :/ Hopefully by next year she can finally take the C&J WR.
I don’t know about 2016. 16 months is plenty of time for her to rest, recuperate, and prep for Rio. Some weightlifters deliberately take long breaks (Ilya Illin) and others can even come back from paralysis (Zhang Xiangxiang) or bone injury and illness (Lu Yong). Zhou has already made 2 international showings since London (Wroclaw 2013 and Incheon 2014) so she doesn’t have to worry about any comps until Rio (unless of course they make her fight for it against Meng Suping at 2015 Nationals).
But… if Kashirina maintains her monstrous form, the Chinese weightlifting team may decide not to allocate any of their 10 spots to the women’s 75+ since from Olympic history, you can see that China would sooner put 2 people in one division to dominate gold and silver than send a lone person into a division they didn’t believe s/he could win.
Minor point, but 2013 doesn’t count for Rio hence she would have to do 2016 Asians if she’s out for the rest of the year.
http://www.iwf.net/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2014/05/2014-05-28-Rio-2016-Qualification-System-FINAL-Weightlifting-EN.pdf
But since China also has a Grand Prix this year again after 2011, maybe she’ll enter this with a low result just to have the Rio qualification. We’ll see.
Since an athlete has to compete internationally twice between Olympics, under the new IWF regulations, then doesn’t that mean Ilya has to compete once more internationally since all he has done is the 2014 worlds?
Yes, and for the second competition he has various choices. Asian Championships, Grand Prix, Worlds (which he already said he would not attend)