Speed skating star promotes Special Olympics
Print Edition
Retired speed skater Yang Yang, China’s first Winter Olympics gold medalist, now wants to help China win the right to host the Winter Olympics one day.
Yang, who won the women’s 500-meter short track at the 2002 Games (and many other medals over the years), founded the Feiyang Ice Skating Center dedicated to winter sports. It opened this year in the Pudong New Area.
“As a skater, my ultimate dream is to help China win right to host the Winter Olympic Games,” the 38-year-old skater from Heilongjiang Province told Shanghai Daily.
Since 2010 she has been a member of the International Olympic Committee and she recently was named Special Olympics Global Ambassador.
Because of her Special Olympics role, the Feiyang Ice Skating Center will become the training ground for Special Olympics winter sports coaches and athletes. Yang and her team are designing the training programs.
The Special Olympics features athletes with intellectual disabilities, and 2013 will be the 45th year of the games. Yang and her team will select skaters willing to coach Special Olympics athletes in sports such as short track speed skating, figure skating and ice hockey.
“There were no classes or training courses to bring up expert coaches to teach a special group of people,” Yang said. Training for special athletes is very different from standard coaching, she said.
Coaches need to interact with trainees and demonstrate more, relying less on verbal communication.
“I was very touched when I first saw young athletes with intellectual disabilities try to pick up sports on ice,” Yang said with emotion. “It reminded me of my own happiness when I first took up skating. You can find the children’s inner power only when you see them trying with your own eyes. I feel lucky, because it would be a sad thing if a person could no longer be touched or moved.”
Enthusiasm for sports has propelled Yang, years after her retirement in 2006.
“I got lost in my first year of retirement from competition and for years I was trying to figure out how to find that passion for life again,” she said.
Retired professional athletes always face that problem, she said. “The key is to try out more possibilities. I’m lucky because I found happiness again by doing my good for skating.”
She said that Chinese children have too little access to sports and spend most of their time studying. “They don’t experience the joy and power sports can add to their lives,” she said.
She urges more skaters, especially China’s Olympic and world champions, to help coach athletes in the Special Olympics. As a global ambassador for the Special Olympics, Yang joins a list of envoys that includes Yao Ming, Michael Phelps, Korean skater Yuna Kim, Chinese television presenter and entrepreneur Yang Lan, and actress Zhang Ziyi.
The three-time Olympian has won two Olympic golds, two silvers and a bronze medal. She still holds the record of winning China’s most world champion titles (59) throughout her 23-year career.
After her retirement, Yang attended Tsinghua University and studied economic management.
In 2010 she joined the IOC. She is also a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Skating Union Athlete Commission member, as well as chairwoman of the Athlete Commission of the Chinese Olympic Committee.
She took part in the IOC vote last month, when wrestling reclaimed its spot in the 2020 Summer Olympics.
“I’m learning through all my experiences,” Yang said, adding that at first she didn’t know what her IOC role should be. Now she asks a lot of questions, informs herself about many issues, and urges athletes’ involvement in decision making.
By learning her way around the IOC, she hopes that one day her contribution will be helping China host the Winter Olympic Games.
Yang spends half the year in the Feiyang Ice Skating Center, learning everything from management to operating strategy to maintenance.
It is one of the very few such centers in southern China.
The skating and hockey rinks are open to the paying public. Courses are also offered. The short track skating course is open for free.
“Not many people do short track skating so we open this court for free to attract people,” Yang said. “Sports development requires public involvement.”
Yang is among the first batch to introduce ice sports to Shanghai’s young people.
She plans to build clubs by cooperating with schools and eventually establish ice sports leagues based on the clubs.
Her original plan after retirement was to open a skating school. Now her dream is to manage an arena, a much bigger challenge.
“It’s only when you really love something that you stick with it and carry on,” she said.
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