The next couple days of our trip were a mix of sightseeing and swimming. In the morning, we saw some of the sights and then in the afternoon, we visit 2 of the main clubs in Hangzhou. The overall picture of swimming here in Hangzhou looks a little like this. Hangzhou is a city of about 6 million people and there are about 20 swimming "clubs" here. Here, the word club is somewhat different then it is at home. A club here is a swim program that is set up in one of the many sports schools here in the city. Some you can join, others you can be selected out of primary school, or out of the lessons run at the pool and invited to join the team. Of the 20 teams, only 4 of which are considered professional programs, which simply means that they produce the best swimmers and receive the most support from the government. At this "city" level program, swimmers work hard and train to reach the professional Provincial team. The Chinese national team is selected from the best of the 19 or so different provincial teams around the county. The Zhejiang Provincial team (which Hangzhou is part of), is the best in all of China and almost half of China's National team which represent the country during world competitions (like the Olympics) come from there.
Two of the Hangzhou "city-level" teams are the DaGuan School and the ChenJinglin Sports School. The two are separate clubs, but maintain a close link in friendship between each other in swimming because the coach of DaGuan (Wei Wei) used to coach under the coach from ChenJinglin (Coach Bia). It was coach Wei Wei that discovered 2012 Olympic superstar Ye Shiwen and recruited her to swim at ChenJinglin School in 2004. Coach Wei Wei gets "credit" for her discovery in the Chinese system. The other Chinese world record holder and swimming star Sun Yang also comes from the ChenJinglin school.
On day 4, we went two visit West Lake in Hangzhou in the morning and visited DaGuan in the afternoon and watched practice. On day 5, we went to a very old and famous Buddhist monastery in the morning and the ChenJinglin school in the afternoon and watched that practice. At some later point, when I have more time, I will get into the specifics of what I saw and experience. Today, we visit the Zhejiang Provincial Team and meet some of their superstars. That's all for now.
Coach Tim
No comments:
Post a Comment