BEIJING: Huang Xuechen isn’t one to dwell on past glories. So much so that the veteran artistic swimmer even keeps her bulging medal collection hidden out of sight.
For most athletes, a haul of five silver and two Olympic bronze medals－as well as dozens of world championship honors－would take pride of place in a display cabinet at home. Not so for Huang.
“I put all the medals in a box under my bed, and I always tell myself and my friends that we need to look to the future and move forward. We cannot live in the past and always focus on what we have earned,” Huang told China Daily during an exclusive livestream interview on Weibo on Thursday after winning her latest medal－a gold for the united team at the National Games in Xi’an.
“These are all my precious memories. I don’t want these medals and achievements to define or limit me,” the 31-year-old added.“Also, I just tell my daughter that mom needs to work and compete, because I don’t want her to always brag that her mother is a famous Olympian.
“I hide the box under my bed, so my daughter doesn’t even have the chance to get those medals out. I know that I won them once, and that’s enough for me.”
Huang strongly hinted at retirement in the wake of her National Games campaign, describing it as “possibly the last show” of her career. At the very least, she is looking forward to a long rest after an arduous summer of competition that began with the Tokyo Olympics.
As a veteran of the sport and a mother, she admits that traveling for months away from family can be challenging. “Even though we needed to complete the 21-day quarantine after the Tokyo Olympics, we still kept training in the hotel room. We couldn’t train in the pool during that time. But as a veteran, after all these years of training, I’m able to handle these situations and maintain my condition,” Huang said.
“However, I was a little bit nervous at the National Games, because I barely had time to train together with my teammates in the buildup. So I worried about our synchronization. Now that we actually have a chance to train together, I just want to thank my younger teammates who tolerated me a lot when I made mistakes.”
Huang made her Olympic debut at the 2008 Beijing Games, winning a bronze. After the 2016 Rio Games, she took maternity leave but returned two years later with Tokyo 2020 in her sights.
“I returned to compete after 2016 due to my responsibility to the national team and also my dream of seeing our national flag raised again at the Olympics. I aimed for the highest podium,” Huang said. “Although I didn’t win the gold, what matters more for me now is the entire process. I gained more confidence. I remember I weighed almost 100 kilograms at one point before I returned. The process of how I pushed my limits was very rewarding for me.”
Remarkably, Huang defied age and injuries to shed 30 kilograms and was soon back on the medal trail.
– The Daily Mail-China Daily News exchange item
