After the Youth Olympic diving women’s three-meter board competition on the 15th, Chen Ruolin communicated with others about the competition from time to time, and also clapped with other staff, “Well done today!”
Xinhua News Agency, Buenos Aires, October 15th issue: from “five crown Kings” to “referee”
Xinhua news agency reporters Li Hualiang, Zheng Zhi and NI Ruijie
The diving project of the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires is in fierce battle, “After 00” diving stars were brilliant, and there was also a “new star” outstanding performance on the referee table. She was Chen Ruolin, the former five-Crown King of diving Olympics.
Chen Ruolin began to practice diving at the age of 5. In 2008, the Beijing Olympic Games was make a great coup. The 2012 London Olympic Games and the 2016 Rio Olympic Games continued to create glory and became one of the few Olympic “Five Crowns”. In October 2016, she issued a retirement statement through social platforms, announcing that she retired due to injuries.
There are a variety of choices for athletes after retirement. Chen Ruolin chose to stay in the diving arena she was no longer familiar with and become a referee. “In the second half of 2017, I entered the diving technical committee of FINA, and now I am one of the members. I have started to make decisions in some competitions since the beginning of 2018.” She said.
“The first appearance of the competition as a referee was a children’s competition in China at the beginning of 2018 as a transition.” Chen Ruolin introduced. The Beijing station of FINA World Diving Series in March 2018 was her first time as the referee in the international competition, which was also her role in the Youth Olympic diving competition.
According to her introduction, the referee is almost equivalent to the “Butler” in the competition. In order to make the competition go smoothly, everything inside and outside should be worried. “For example, the movements of athletes are different from those originally reported, the athletes touch the board when jumping, the audience is too noisy to affect the athletes, etc, be aware of all possible situations.”
Although he had a brilliant record on the court, Chen Ruolin said bluntly when he stepped onto the referee: “He still needs a lot of study and preparation. For example, foreign languages need to be continuously strengthened. Now there is no problem in my ordinary communication, but I still have a lack of more difficult ones.”
Which is more difficult to be an athlete to compete or a referee? Chen Ruolin smiled and said, “it is more difficult to be a referee. When athletes are, they can manage themselves well and adjust their comprehensive ability and Competition Status. However, when they are judges, they should not only be familiar with the competition rules, we also need to prepare for various situations that may occur on the court.”
In her view, especially when the referee of the Youth Olympic Games competition is actually under great pressure, which involves every athlete, every referee and every detail of the situation before the competition, in the game, you need to always tighten your nerves and prepare to deal with some unexpected situations.
After the Youth Olympic diving women’s three-meter board competition on the 15th, Chen Ruolin communicated with others about the competition from time to time, and also clapped with other staff, “Well done today!”
When talking about future plans, Chen Ruolin said, “I just entered the diving technical committee, but I still hope to do my current job well. In the future, I need to step by step, keep learning and enrich, improve yourself.”