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Short track team's 'mother' wants to stay

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-18 09:16

Short track team's 'mother' wants to stay

Beijing - Li Yan missed her daughter so much that she 'adopted' a team to help fill the void.

Four years ago, she left her now five-year-old daughter with her husband in the United States to become head coach of the Chinese short track speed skating team.

To alleviate the pain of being away from her youngster, she immersed herself in her work so much that she came to call the skaters in her charge her "children".

Her 'kids' came to the fore at the recent Vancouver Winter Games when the Chinese team made history by sweeping all four gold medals in the women's events.

Li wants to keep that happy family together and has confirmed her willingness to extend her contract with the team. She also wants to move her real family back to China.

"I am Chinese, so my first choice is the Chinese team," said Li. "My family has always supported me. So if I decide to stay in China, my family will be back as well this time."

After the Turin Winter Games in 2006, Li's contract with the US short track speed skating team ended and she chose to come back to help the China squad.

As in any family, it was far from smooth sailing and she went through a difficult time after the retirements of some of the veteran skaters.

She also had to conquer a conflict in training concepts and earn acceptance from the young skaters, especially team leader Wang Meng, who claimed China's only gold medal in short track in Turin.

"I had heard the new generation had a very negative attitude when I was in the US but when I had to face them myself, I felt at a complete loss initially," Li said. "I didn't expect that even some English words I used in training would disgust them."

What's more, Wang emerged as the team's problem child and even declared to withdrew from the national squad.

Although Wang was slapped with a ban, Li, whose star pupils have included US men's Olympic champion Apolo Anton Ohno, knew she had to do something to remedy the situation.

When Wang finally returned to the fold, she found something in her coach had changed.

"When I suffered a waist injury in 2008, Li helped me a lot in training," Wang said.

"She reduced my intensive training tasks and told me that if I did enough I could take a rest. It made me feel very comfortable in front of the whole team and even more willing to finish the full training tasks."

With a newfound self-belief installed in her by the coach, Wang broke the women's 500m world record of 43.671 seconds held by Evgenia Radanova of Bulgaria soon after with a time of 43.326. The record had stood for seven years.

"I know all those children are working very hard and I will never fail to live up to their trust in me," Li said. "I know I have to lift the team to succeed no matter how hard it is."

Li fulfilled her commitment in Vancouver, where China dominated the event's medal standings with four golds and usurped the once mighty South Koreans.

"We made the right decision to invite Li Yan to coach the team four year ago. She brought a new concept to the team and made a total change," said team leader Yang Zhanwu.

Now, Li is leading the team to Bulgaria for the World Championships this weekend. Her contract with the Chinese team ends in May.

"After coming back from Vancouver, the officials and the team were very busy so we didn't get the chance to discuss renewing the contract," Li said. "Li is an outstanding coach. We are very satisfied with her work and all the skaters trust her," said Zhao Yinggang, director of China's Winter Sports Administrative Center. "We will sit down and discuss further cooperation after the World Championships."