China's players celebrate after the women's gold medal match of Volleyball against Serbia at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Aug. 20, 2016. China won the gold medal. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei)
by Xinhua writer Tian Dongdong
BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese women's volleyball team has won! After more than 30 years of striving through hardships since the 1980s, the Chinese girls earned their third historic Olympic gold medal in Rio De Janeiro on Sunday.
Looking back at the Chinese women's volleyball team's Rio journey, people can only call it "startling by each step" -- being assigned to the so-called "group of death", the Chinese girls stumbled into quarterfinals as only the No. 4 of the group with just two victories in prelims.
But the girls never gave up. After an epic comeback against defending champion Brazil in the quarterfinals and then triumphed against the Netherlands in the semis, they made their way to the final and rewrote history.
The hard-won victory is reminiscent of a bumpy road the national team has taken since the 1980s: Chinese women's volleyball team had risen to the top podium five times in World Championships, World Cups and Olympics in the 1980s but had dropped to obscurity at difficult times.
The crowning of the team in Rio, 32 years after the historic Olympic victory in Los Angeles in 1984, is a vivid portrait of fighting spirit of the Chinese women's volleyball team: to march on with unyieldingness, teamwork and selflessness.
Through ups and downs and fighting along the way, the Chinese women's volleyball team has never forgotten its initial dream. Just like China's coach Lang Ping said:" [My players] never gave up even though there were some nerves with the occasion. We managed to win the match and that is what our team showed the world."
The girls truly deserve the gold medal, as they never lose hope and keep on fighting.
Today, the Chinese need the fighting spirit of the women's volleyball team more than ever. As individuals, living in a time of drastic change with both opportunities and challenges, one needs the spirit to go sure-footed and step by step to reach afar.
For a big nation, trudging forward to achieve development in an increasingly complicated domestic and international environment is never an easy job, and that makes the spirit of perseverance and the determination to fight on more than ever indispensable.
To be a champion, more than a champion! May the fighting spirit of the Chinese women's volleyball team be always with us.
