Olympic MVP Zhu Ting confident despite Tokyo 2020 delay
- Captain of China’s all-conquering women’s volleyball team describes coach Lang Ping as ‘like a mother’
- Gold medallists from 2016 have been in training since January but star sees it as an opportunity to get even better
Zhu Ting, the captain of China’s all-conquering women’s volleyball team has dismissed concerns about the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games being postponed until 2021.
Speaking to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV’s “Face to Face” programme, Zhu acknowledged that it had disrupted every country’s training plans but said that, “You can think of it as a difficulty or an opportunity.”
She said that there was more time to prepare and more time to work hard in her view, as well as joking that she got to spend more time with her coach and teammates.
Zhu, who was named MVP as China lifted gold in Rio four years ago, has been in training with her teammates since January. They met up in Beijing on January 30 after the Lunar New Year festival.
She told host Dong Qian of her gratitude to her father, who allowed her to leave the family farm in a village in Henan at 13, and to China head coach Lang Ping. She described Lang, the only person to have won Olympic volleyball gold as a player and a coach, as “like a mother”.