by Sportswriters Yao Youming, Zhao Jiantong and Zheng Zhi
TESERO, Italy, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Team China finished its campaign in the para biathlon event of Milan-Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games after bagging eight gold medals, five silver medals and two bronze medals here on Friday, marking its all-time best Paralympics finish.
How could Team China make such great progress? Fu Chunshan, coach of the China para biathlon and para cross-country skiing team, gave the answer.
STRONG SUPPORT FROM THE COUNTRY
When Fu participated in the Torino 2006 Paralympic Winter Games, China had less than 10 participants, including athletes, coaches and guides at that edition.
He couldn't deny his envy when he saw the powerhouses of the para biathlon world had a strong squad, including competitive para athletes, coaches, team doctors, waxers, and equipment managers, among others.
"Our coaches, who were amateurs, took on multiple roles concurrently in our team. Besides competitions, a national para athlete needed to worry about many things. Even a loose screw of a sit-ski needed my attention," Said Fu.
When Beijing was awarded the host rights of the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in 2015, China's winter sports for the disabled had achieved a leapfrog development. In the Chinese team of para biathlon and para cross-country skiing in Italy, Fu had all the colleagues that he had dreamed of for many years.
"China has become more powerful in recent years. Support from the homeland helps us make the breakthrough," said Fu.
SCIENTIFIC PREPARATION
Cai Jiayun won three golds at Milan-Cortina 2026. As harding training has been the key to the success of Cai who put in extra two hours each day on training, science and technology also played a vital role.
"We brought our training sessions many new technology elements. For example, we set up a heart rate monitoring system so that we can make our athletes ski in a suitable heart rate zone," Fu said.
"What's more, we check the skiers' blood lactates from time to time, looking forward to adjusting their training plans scientifically," he added.
When he became a national team coach of the para cross-country skiing and para biathlon in 2016, Fu began to research and improve sitting skiers' seats with his partners in the winter sports industry. Now para athletes can ski on domestic seats made of titanium alloy.
UNITED AS ONE
"We are a very united team. They help each other daily lives," said para biathlete of Team China Yuan Mingshou.
In the last four years, para cross-country skiing and para biathlon teams focused more on improving biathletes' shooting skills. In the main training session of each morning, except Sunday, the coaches always let the skiers do more exercises in the para biathlon.
"In the after-dinner training, we would sit together to review their shooting moves," Fu told Xinhua.
"We united as one because we believed that we could beat everyone one day," Fu said.
To help the biathletes adapt to the competition pace, Fu and the other coaches always construct an outdoor shooting range.
In the vision impairment category, biathletes are aided by acoustic targets that indicate how close they are to the target before shooting. To give vision-impaired athletes more practical suggestions, Fu liked to try to 'shoot' the acoustic targets during the training camp.
"It's very noisy in the headphones. If I 'shoot' as biathletes with visual impairments, it is hard for me to avoid suffering a shooting penalty. Then I know more about our visually impaired biathlon athletes," Fu said.
After Yu Shuang finished third in the men's sprint pursuit vision impaired qualification, he found out that better waxing of his skis can help him turn the tables. Before the final, waxers of the team finished their job, helping Yu pocket his ground-breaking Paralympic gold medal on Friday.
"The gold medal doesn't just belong to me. Everyone on my team has contributed to it," Yu said.
"I hope all the Chinese disabled people can enjoy the moment and share the happiness with us," Fu said.
"If we disabled people have ambitions and confidence, if we work hard enough, all our dreams will be fulfilled." ■
