Over the years, Gao Song has faded out of the national team, but this year’s women’s basketball Asian Cup is true to her mission.

After 12 years, China won the Asian Cup (formerly known as the Asian Championship) women’s basketball again, which is exciting to climb to the top of Asia again. In this Chinese women’s basketball array, Gao Song is the only player who has ever won the Asian Championship 12 years ago.

“I don’t even know that 12 years have passed.” On the evening of July 2, after China ended Japan’s five consecutive women’s basketball championships women’s basketball, Gao Song told reporters.

A reincarnation in 12 years, Gao song has become a veteran who has experienced many battles from the young general who followed Miao Lijie and other elder sisters in the past. This time, when Li Yuelu and Huang Sijing were absent from the Asian Cup due to injury, the head coach Zheng Wei thought of Gao song again and brought her under her command again.

Gao Song lived up to everyone’s expectations. After the whole Asian Cup came down, she scored 4.8 points and 5.2 rebounds during the 15.1-minute playing time, which not only played a prominent role in the defensive end, han Xu won valuable rest time.

At the same time, Gao Song had also been included in the national list of three people women’s basketball. She, who was over 30 years old, once said that she would not consider retirement. Now it seems that she can play for several years in Gao Song’s current state. It is really a little early to say that he will retire.

Northeast elder sister

Gao Song was born in Daqing, Heilongjiang province. He is a typical “Northeast elder sister”. He will not twist and pinch. He only has to be capable and bold. If he is straightforward, he thinks you are a good person and is willing to say a few more words, if you don’t feel very good, it is harder than climbing to heaven to ask something from her mouth.

The first time she met Gao Song was before the preliminary match of Shaanxi National Games two years ago, she held a teaching competition on behalf of a group of children from Sichuan women’s basketball adult team and Sichuan youth team. Compared with the youth team players who are much younger, Gao Song did not slack off at all. She finished the attack and defense at a glance. She was in a very good competitive state in her thirties.

“I am ready for the National Games.” Gao Song said at that time that she hoped to help Sichuan women’s basketball achieve good results in the National Games, but for various reasons, she finally failed to stand on the stage of the National Games.

The Shaanxi National Games set up the “Olympic Joint team”, that is, the national character team participating in the Tokyo Olympic Games competed for the gold medal in the National Games together with teams from other provinces and cities, shao Ting, the leading figure in Sichuan women’s basketball, is the spiritual leader of the Olympic joint team. However, the Sichuan Women’s Basketball Without Shao Ting was mainly formed by the Northern Division and the class, with little experience, many games in the National Games were won first, then lost, and finally only won the seventh place. At that time, someone sighed, “If only Gao Song could fight.”

Gao Song himself felt a little sorry. Of course, what was more regretful was that in the 2021-2022 WCBA league, she entered the finals with Sichuan women’s basketball with a total victory record, but lost two consecutive games in the finals, losing women’s basketball in Inner Mongolia, lost the championship. In those two wars, Gao Song did not play its due level and suffered criticism from the outside world.

Therefore, the reporter can understand the mood of Gao song very well. Even if he is careless, he cannot completely ignore the comments from the outside world, “If he does not win the championship this time, where to put this face?” this words poured out the voice of praise.

Everyone has known each other for a long time, and they are naturally familiar with each other. Gao Song is no longer alert to me. She is eating chestnut while recalling the past, “Forget it, don’t eat it, I want to answer your question seriously.”

Gao Song was born in a long family, “my grandma, grandpa, and Grandpa are all quite tall, that is, Grandma is a little shorter, and my dad looks like 1.92 or 1.93 meters, my mother is about 1.83 meters.” Therefore, it is not surprising that Gao Song has nearly 1.90 meters of silk.

However, Gao Song was not taken to play basketball by his parents as expected from an early age-even though his mother was the main force of Heilongjiang Women’s Basketball-instead, he practiced swimming for two holidays, “I forgot whether it was winter vacation or summer vacation. Later, due to the water quality problem, my hair turned into yellow hair, so my family wouldn’t let me swim, so I started playing basketball.”

Gao Song was only five or six years old when she first came into contact with basketball. Her enlightenment coach was her mother, “My mother was a basketball coach at that time. She was a very strict coach and strict with others, it is stricter for me. It doesn’t matter whether I just got in touch with basketball or not, it is so small.”

Gao Song couldn’t remember when the first basketball match in his life was played and who the opponent was, “but I was nervous in that match and my teeth were shaking up and down the whole game.”

Gao song was originally studying in primary school like his peers, just using winter and summer vacation to train in sports school, “Anyway, my father just picked me up to go to sports school to make up a missed lesson, and went to sports school to train after finishing the class, which went round and round again.”

Later, Gao Song’s talent in basketball gradually appeared, and her family let her study in sports school, which did not delay her studies or practice.

Therefore, the growth route of Gao song is different from that of most players. Others went to sports school only in junior high school at the earliest, but she has already started her sports school life in primary school.

National team regular customers

However, Gao Song didn’t think how professional he practiced in primary school, “because it is small, it is actually playing.” Gao Song joined Hualong women’s basketball in junior high school, which was later Heilongjiang Hayao women’s basketball. Miao Lijie played for the team at that time.

Although it is in the echelon of the club and classes are arranged at school at ordinary times, it is actually not much different from sports schools. It is the same as morning exercises, and it is basically trained all day without classes in winter and summer vacations, “My growth experience is different from others. The training with me is basically much bigger than me, and they are all big sisters.” The high eyebrows bent into a roll.

In 2007, Gao Song was selected into the national youth women’s basketball. Both summer training and winter training were spent in the national youth team. At this time, she absorbed nutrition like a sponge, and her football skills improved rapidly. In the 2007-2008 season, Gao Song, who was still playing in the youth team, began to play in the WCBA league, and the first team was the main force. Speaking of this, Gao Song said frankly that he was very lucky. “At that time, Song Liwei was injured, so he transferred me from the youth team. They were all at the big level, and they were over ten years older than me. To be honest, I was a little nervous at that time.”

However, the basic skills of Gao Song who came from the professional team since childhood are very solid, and the elder sister in the team also takes good care of her, so that she can quickly integrate into the team, plus a momentum that newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, gao Song has emerged in the league.

During the off-season of the league in 2009, Gao Song received a transfer order from the national team, which made her have some difficulties for a while. “Three words appeared in my mind at the first time: Incredible! How is that possible? Why me? After all, it was still young at that time, with some fear and some expectation, but many feelings were mixed together.”

At that time, China broke into the top four of the Beijing Olympic Games women’s basketball a year ago. Miao Lijie and Chen Nan were still playing in the year. Most of the players in the future were born around 1985. In Gao Song’s words, “I stand inside is a little bit, quite abrupt.”

The big sisters rushed ahead, and Gao Song also followed China to win the gold medal of Guangzhou Asian Games in women’s basketball and the champion of the 2011 Asian Championship. Among them, he fought with the Lebanese team in the Asian Championship, and Gao Song scored 19 points and 8 rebounds. The experience of the national team also enhanced Gao Song’s confidence. When she returned to the league, she played more proactive and no longer played the role of “eating cakes” around the elder sisters. In the 2010-2011 season, Gao song could get 23.3 points, with comprehensive data of 9.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.3 steals, a Star of Hope rose.

And what really made the high praise shine and was known by the National fans was the London Olympics. At that time, the Chinese women’s basketball was already a little old-fashioned, but the high praise standing beside Chen Nan made people shine at the moment. Her consciousness and technology made the narrator call “the biggest gain of China’s women’s basketball in the Olympic Games”.

“After the London Olympics, many people asked me if I had ever thought that I would play so well. In fact, at that time, I am young players had no burden and it was very relaxing to go up, the first three points have been put in, and the second and third will also enter, which is completely in a state of enjoying the competition.” Gao Song paused, as if recalling a very beautiful thing.

However, since then, China began to decline women’s basketball, losing 35 points to the Japanese team in Wuhan the Championships finals of Asia, and won the tickets for the Rio Olympics through the play-off. Until the 2018 Basketball World Cup entered the first six, it finally recovered, and Gao Song is a witness.

However, with the increase of age, Gao Song gradually faded out of the national team a few years ago. In 2021, she switched to three-person basketball but failed on the eve of the Tokyo Olympics. In this regard, although some people were embarrassed for her, she herself was very calm. “I told myself two words at that time, one was to accept everything happened, and the other was that I had done my best for the three-person basketball.”

Gold always shines. This year, Gao song was called by the national team again, fighting with his teammates all the way, and won the Asian Cup again, creating history. In addition, Gao Song joined hands with Zhao Xuetong, Zhang Wang and Sun Mengran to help Sichuan women’s basketball win the 2022chinese women’s three-person Basketball League championship with full victory!

Four Crowns in hand

Compared with the national team, Gao Song is also the King in the WCBA league. After winning the bronze medal of the 2013 National Games on behalf of Heilongjiang Women’s Basketball, Gao Song moved south to Zhejiang Women’s Basketball. The Zhejiang Women’s Basketball gathered players with national names such as Jilan, Chen Xiaoli and Ji Xiao, aiming at the WCBA league championship.

However, there were a lot of problems inside Zhejiang Women’s Basketball. The so-called “the bank of thousands of miles was destroyed by ant cave”, and they always failed to win the championship, but they achieved the later the treble Shanxi women’s basketball. Speaking of the past, Gao Song shook his head again and again. “There were many internal problems at that time. I really don’t want to mention it again, so let’s skip it directly.”

According to the data, Gao Song played 5 games in Guangdong Women’s basketball in the 2014-2015 season. She was quite impressed because according to the rules at that time, the team that has entered the playoffs can choose an internal aid from a team that has never entered the playoffs, which is almost the same as CBA’s one-year rule. As the leading power forward in China, Gao Song was selected for the playoffs by Guangdong Women’s basketball, but only had an average playing time of 8.5 minutes. “At that time, Guangdong had women’s basketball of these people in Inner Mongolia now, I didn’t take the initiative to go to Guangdong, let’s forget the following things.”

The two years of high praise in Zhejiang Women’s basketball were not very satisfactory, but her personal value still increased with the increase of experience. Therefore, Gao ode won the favor of “palace guards” Beijing women’s basketball. This time her goal is very firm, that is, to win the championship!

“I was thinking about realizing the dream of champion at that time. Beijing women’s basketball was also a group of strong players. In addition to Shao Ting, there were Zhang Fan, Yang semi-partners, and foreign aid Fowles Wine, which was very strong.” Gao Song’s facial expression is very relaxed, “but I think the most difficult season in Beijing women’s basketball is the first year, because I have never won the championship, I especially want to take it, in addition, at that time, each team had foreign aid, and the strength was not much different, unlike the strength of the strong and weak teams now. I remember that Xinjiang was played in the finals at that time. They won two games first and got the match point. We turned three games to win!”

When asked why Beijing could establish a three-Crown dynasty women’s basketball, Gao Song thought about it and said that although there were internal aids like Shao Ting in Beijing women’s basketball at that time, because the whole team was an old-fashioned team, therefore, the old players can pass on the band, “the team has a heritage, which is what they call the ‘shougang Spirit ‘. As long as there is a chance, we will not give up, and we will give it up.”

After thinking for a while, Gao Song told me another “secret thing”. Before the finals with Xinjiang Women’s Basketball, coach Xu Limin organized the whole team to climb the “great wall of the Wild”, at that time, the weather was cold and the North Wind was roaring. “It’s really dangerous. You think, it’s going to be the finals. We were actually organized to climb the Great Wall of the wild. I remember there was a downhill, our team must hold one by one, otherwise it will all slide down. It is too dangerous. Xu’s guidance is very bold.”

The outbreak of the epidemic changed many things. By coincidence, Gao Song left Beijing and went south again. This time she joined the newly formed Sichuan women’s basketball. Different from Beijing women’s basketball, Sichuan women’s basketball returned to WCBA after 15 years after being downgraded from 1999. Since then, they have been unable to get along with the playoffs. In 2019, Yuanda Group took over and then recruited soldiers and horses everywhere. Gao Song joined as a strong aid.

However, after all, Sichuan women’s basketball has a relatively thin foundation. In the first season after joining, Gao Song joined hands with Shao Ting to stop the top four. In the 2021-2022 season, new and old Chinese players such as Li Meng, Han Xu, Sun Mengran and Chen Xiaojia joined Sichuan clique. Nahe Shaoting left the team. Li Meng missed 10 rounds of games due to injury, which affected the running-in of the whole team, sichuan broke into the finals women’s basketball but made two consecutive rounds at Wenjiang’s home court, losing the championship.

In the 2022-2023 season, Sichuan continued to introduce strong aid women’s basketball. Wang Siyu, Wang Jiaqi and Wang Xuefeng joined in succession. The team’s strength was unprecedentedly strong enough to pull the wrist with Inner Mongolia Women’s basketball. As the vice captain of the team, Gao Song played a huge role in the finals. In addition to keeping the attacking end efficient, she completely restricted Huang Sijing in the last two finals, even in the conflict with the other party, “welcome” up……

After winning the championship, Gao Song did not shed tears, but took photos with others with a smile. As usual, she enjoyed the joy of victory in a low profile. For this veteran, the four crowns no longer need to be justified, but Gao Song will continue to move forward, “I won’t think about retirement, I can still fight!”

Years will reward people who have been working hard, and Gao Song is obviously like this.

(Text/”Basketball” magazine reporter Zeng Wei)