Chapter 297: The Core of the National Table Tennis Team
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Cui's injuries were more serious than those of Xiangxian Zuo. What's more, Zuo had only really had a single waist injury, while Cui had several injuries in the waist, the knees, and the shoulders, among which, the shoulder injury was the most serious.
For table tennis players, their shoulders are always moving, as whether they serve or catch the ball, they must always be using their shoulders. Therefore, their shoulders would not get any rest, as long as they keep playing table tennis. Considering this, it is extremely difficult for table tennis players to recover from a shoulder injury.
As for a core player like Pengfei Cui, as long as he could continue to play table tennis, it would be impossible for him to take a year or so off in order to heal his injury. Therefore, his shoulder injury would get worse from overuse, until his injury prevented him from playing table tennis.
…
Cui tried to rotate his shoulder, only to find that seventy or eighty percent of the distending pain in his shoulder had disappeared. If he did not deliberately press the shoulder, he felt no pain at all.
"My shoulder injury no longer affects my shoulder movement!" Pengfei Cui suddenly felt as he was in a dream. His shoulder injury had been a nuisance for him for several years. He had gone to see many expert doctors, including famous foreign experts, but all of them had offered no good method to treat it.
All the therapies and advice given by the medical experts were that, if he wanted to recover from his injury, he must give up playing table tennis for a while in order to then receive treatment. As such, their therapies wouldn't work unless he was willing to stop playing the games during his treatment.
However, his same shoulder injury that had troubled many medical experts was finally solved by Dai Li! Dai Li's rehabilitation massage therapy couldn't cure Cui's shoulder injury completely, but at least it could relieve the pain caused by the injury, and alleviate the impact on Cui as much as possible. Just for this reason, Dai Li won Cui's trust easily.
Cui knew that only by following Dai Li's suggestions, could his shoulder injury be relieved. Therefore, he strictly followed Li's training program. He became very serious in his training, and would do anything he was told. Based on this new leaf he was turning over in his behavior, it seemed that Cui had never been a troublemaker at all.
…
"Keeping moving, faster! faster!" Dai Li said with a strict expression, it looked like he was scolding Pengfei Cui.
However, Cui didn't mind the way Dai Li spoke to him, and he clenched his teeth to try even harder to quicken his pace. Many people were extremely surprised by Cui's unusual performance, as Cui's rebellious temperament was known to everyone.
In fact, when Pengfei Cui had returned to the national table tennis team, there was no coach willing to coach him. Even those experienced coaches felt that they could not manage him.
But Pengfei Cui became completely obedient to Dai Li. This was unexpected to everyone. They all soon wanted to know what magic the new young coach had played, that he should have the ability to convince Pengfei Cui! Thus, Dai Li had an air of mystery in their minds.
…
"Pengfei Cui became so obedient to him, so now, I'm becoming more and more curious about him," Bin Wang said, shaking his head, but with a smile on his face.
"How long has Dai Li been in our team?" Zhizhong Gu suddenly asked.
Bin Wang thought for a while and replied, "A little more than a month."
"Ah, only just over a month!" Gu said with a loud sigh, "We will have the closed training next week, and I am going to invite Dai Li to join the pre-match consultation."
"What? He has only been here for about a month, and you want him to join the pre-match consultation? Isn't that too soon?" Bin Wang asked in surprise.
"It might be a bit hasty to get him into the core of our team. He has just been here for more than a month, but now he is responsible for the physical training of the main players of our team. From this point of view, his responsibilities are similar to the main coaches. So, I want to know what he thinks before the game," said Zhizhong Gu.
"Perhaps far more than this? You are planning to cultivate him for the future, right?" Bin Wang said with a smile.
"Sure enough, you always see through my mind," Gu said. "Dai Li is different from us, as he has not been an athlete before. When we were young, we had training and competition every day, and were thinking about how to defeat our opponents every day. But Dai Li spent his youth in college, where he learned how to coach others. Compared with us, he is a purer coach. So, I want to bring him into our coaching system, to see what the effect will be."
"You are planning to try some new coaching system?" Wang asked immediately.
Zhizhong Gu nodded his head and replied, "We have been the world's No.1 in table tennis, but I want to make further progress. We had the world's top athletes and coaching team. Next, I will try to set up a world's top training system for table tennis! No matter who will be the coach of the national table tennis team, as long as we continue to follow this training system, we will still be the world's No.1."
…
The closed training of the national table tennis team was underway. On the training ground, Anshan Wang, Pengfei Cui, Xiangxian Zuo and other main players were all absent, as well as were their executive coaches.
But the coaches and athletes of the team were not surprised, as they had been used to this. Only Li's absence aroused the attention of anyone.
"It's now past eight o'clock, why hasn't Dai Li come yet? He's never late. Is he ill?"
"I saw him in the dining room, when I was having breakfast. He looked well and sound. Maybe he went to the bathroom!"
"But he doesn't need to stay for half an hour in the bathroom. Does he have constipation?" the speaker looked at his watch.
"You don't know yet? Dai Li went to the meeting room."
"The meeting room? Is the pre-match consultation going on there? What did he go there for?"
"There is no doubt that he was invited to attend the meeting!"
"Impossible! Only the core athletes and coaches can attend that meeting. He's only been here for more than a month. How could he be qualified for the pre-match consultation? I have been a coach here for more than seven years, and I haven't been invited to attend the pre-match consultation, not even once," said Coach Wang.
"That's for sure. But you haven't cultivated any grand slam winner, right? That's why you can't attend the pre-match consultation." The coach continued to say, "Although Dai Li just came here for a month, he was responsible for the training of Anshan Wang, Xinagxian Zuo, and Pengfei Cui. Regardless of other reasons, we had no ways to convince Pengfei Cui, but he did it."
"You are right, almost nobody could handle that troublemaker. But he has become so obedient to Dai Li."
"Dai Li just came here for a month so far, but he has already had the ability to enter into the core team of the national table tennis. This is really something! Compared with others, he has saved a decade of time to enter the core team!"
Dai Li followed Zhizhong Gu and walked toward the meeting room.
"Coach, what are we going to do?" asked Li.
"Attend the pre-match consultation," replied Gu.
"Consultation? Did anyone get hurt?" Dai Li didn't understand what Gu said and so continued to question, "But we are not doctors."
"This is the pre-match consultation!" Coach Gu smiled, then he said, "You are the core staff of the national table tennis team now!"