Field cyclist Zhong Tianshi doesn’t seem to have made a point of recalling the moment when she won the Olympic champion.

In 2016, she got her first Olympic champion at the Rio Olympics; in 2021, 30-year-old Zhong Tianshi took the champion in the women’s track cycling team race at the Tokyo Olympics.

Zhong Tianshi said that all her achievements were past and so was the process.

Zhong Tianshi was regarded as a genius for winning two Olympic champions, but few know that she had suffered from a serious illness before. In fact, the only way to get to your peak moment is to survive the intense training day in and day out on the training field.

The key to Zhong Tianshi’s success is “hardworking”.

She can't forget the most painful training session. After she finished training, she said “her legs were not her own” and she needed assistance to get out of the car. The lactic acid buildup made Zhong’s muscles stiff, and after she got off the bus, she just “snapped” and fell to the ground, unable to move, wailing in pain.

In an exclusive interview with the South Daily and South+ reporters, Zhong Tianshi mentioned again and again that even with talent, it is difficult to reach the top of the pyramid if you don’t put in 100 percent effort.

After 20 years of riding, Zhong Tianshi has celebrated her farewell moment. Although she has retired from racing, cycling is still her deep field. Her inspiration is not in the moment of glory, but in the ability to stand up when she falls down.

The following is the account of Zhong Tianshi:

Injuries and illnesses are also valuable life experiences >>>

Over the years, the hardest part of my life has been the preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. I started to practice cycling in 2002, joined the Shanghai cycling team in 2007 and became a professional athlete, entered the national team in 2009, and then participated in the Rio Olympics in 2016. It’s been a hard and tiring journey in terms of training, but for me, I haven’t experienced too many setbacks or injuries.

But in the years after 2016, what I thought most was, “Can I keep going and is it possible to get back to the top again?” I went through a relatively serious back injury in 2017, another back injury in 2018, and three fractured ribs and two broken ribs in 2019... I had a very significant injury in almost every year.

How badly were the two back injuries? When I had lie in bed and can’t move for a week. After I sat up from the bed, and then walked to the bathroom, a distance of a dozen meters, but it took me ten to twenty minutes to walk there. I can only move little by little for each action, and I will feel unbearable pain immediately as long as the action is intense.

Under such circumstances, the rhythm of my preparations was seriously disrupted. I will give myself counseling, if I can get through such a stage, then in the future, no matter what I experience in life, I will feel that I can get through, there is nothing that I can’t get through. It was a difficult experience, but it was also a very valuable life experience for me.

Achievements are the past, and so is the process>>>

At the age of 18, I joined the national team in preparation for the 2012 London Olympics. At that time, I was considered the youngest on the team and arguably the worst performer. My daily training status is basically to compare the old athletes, see how much they run, and then see how much I run, every day a little to catch up. At that time, I would hit small goals at each stage, but I would not set very ambitious or stressful goals for myself. I just move forward little by little according to my own state.

After the London Olympics cycle of training, I am still very fast to improve the state. With more and more games, following the national team to participate in a variety of international competitions, experience has accumulated more and more, to 2013 international competition cycle, we basically can be in the top three levels, in the international is very competitive advantage.

At the same time, my position on myself became clearer and clearer, and so did my goal - to achieve a breakthrough in the Olympic Games.

In fact, it seems that I have never recalled the image when I won the Olympic championship until now. The achievement is past tense, the process is also past tense, which was probably because I’m not yet old enough to recall the past. In fact, the preparation process we went through was very realistic, and we took it one step at a time, one step at a time. The process is still very realistic, and there is no sense of trance or dreaming.

I will do my best regardless of whether I can get the gold medal>>>

In my memory, the most painful training brought me a feeling that “my body is not my own”. After we finished the content down, our bodies were out of control, and we needed the assistance of the person next to us to get off, and if we relied on ourselves, we might fall to the ground with the car. I couldn’t lift my legs or my hands, and the lactic acid build-up made my muscles stiff and very sore. After others helped me get off the bus, I couldn’t walk, and fell to the ground directly, wailing. I couldn’t stand, sit or lie down.

But there were also a lot of good moments. In our training, when we were not very tired, we rode our bikes and could feel the wind whistling in our ears and had a very free feeling. When I come down a big hill, I can reach 70 or 80 km/h. The feeling of speed with the wind is so fascinating. I didn't fall in love with the bike at one moment, but the feeling of feeling the wind and nature on the bike every day was too good.

In the path of an athlete, our ultimate goal is to walk onto the Olympic field and reach the top of the Olympic podium. This is also the ultimate goal of every athlete. But the Olympic gold medal on that one, the last person to get may pay a hundred times more than ordinary people a thousand times the effort. Take the Olympic gold medal, timing, location and people, nothing can be missing.

I also have many teammates, former amateur teammates, Shanghai teammates, provincial teammates and national teammates, although they did not get the Olympic gold medal, or even did not take the gold medal at any world competition, but now they are excellent in another field.

Continue to pursue cycling after retirement>>>

Not only athletes, in any industry, any field is inseparable from “hard work”. I like this industry and this project very much, I am very talented in this industry and in this project, but if I don’t work hard and don’t give my 100% effort, I may have some achievements, but I always feel sure that I won’t reach the top of the pyramid.

By this year, I have been in cycling for 20 years, and after I retired, I was hoping to do more for cycling. I want to get more people to understand and love cycling. In the back, I want to go and do something about opening up the venue and opening up our training venue.

I’ve been in communication with the Shanghai Cycling Industry Association and the China Cycling Association about this. In China, our cycling training grounds are only limited to professional athletes training, there are no grounds that are open yet, I hope to open our grounds later, so that amateurs can come and experience the feeling of athletes riding on the field with that kind of wind and speed.

Regarding the development of cycling in China, I think it has a bright prospect. As China’s overall national strength grows stronger, I think cycling as a sport will definitely get better and better. China actually has a lot of reserve talent, and as long as we are united as a team, I believe the future of our cycling program is bright and getting better and better.