After a few minor mistakes during the high bar finals at the 2019 World Gymnastics Championships, Xinhua News interviewed Lin Chaopan and asked about his performance
“Today I didn’t have the best performance on high bar. On my first release move my body position wasn’t totally laid out and my second release was distorted. The rhythm towards the end of my routine was messed up. This issue wasn’t big, but really terrible; if my mind isn’t clear I can make a bigger mistake on the next element.”
During the team final, the Chinese men finished second behind the Russian men by a margin of 0.997.
“Our results this year were not good, I want to sleep on brushwood and taste gall (Chinese idiom: means you’re looking for a comeback after anger/humiliation/frustration) I hope during the winter training, we all improve our execution, and fight together to prepare, and I hope next year at the Olympics we do enough to get a good result.”
“We must study our excellent international competitors. Russia is our rival, they have very good stability, their abilities are also very strong. We don’t have the same difficulty. They are able to compete good difficulty while executing the routine well, this is key. It’s impossible to have a world championships without pressure, athletes with the ability to medal all have nervous moments. How do people overcome and compete in these tense moments? This is an area we need to study.”
“We need to face and accept the results, denying the results won’t help when trying to find out where the real problem is, and we may not be aware of the importance of our problems. These past few days we were mentally exhausted, but we can’t relax. Next we need to reflect, then start winter training, and prepare for the Olympics.”
Because of the new format for the 2020 Olympics, countries may select only four gymnasts to a team. Because of this, gymnasts with strong all-around capabilities are heavily favored. Chaopan stated he wants to increase his difficulty on rings and pommel horse to help the team leading up to the Olympics.
“I’m not going to add any more difficulty to parallel bars, floor, and vault, there isn’t enough time before the Olympics, I want to complete my routines well and make it more consistent. My winter training goal is to improve my abilities, and keep perfecting my routines from the team final.”
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