Xie's sprint dreams won't be dashed

Team China speedster confident best is yet to come as he adopts philosophical outlook on injury-plagued season

Despite making history at the Tokyo Olympics, 2021 has not gone to plan for Xie Zhenye. The sprint star has been slowed down by a series of nagging injuries, but remains determined to show his best is yet to come.

"Injuries have been bothering me so it's been a pretty bumpy season. There's nothing serious, but for us sprinters who push our bodies to the limit, small injuries can still have a big impact," the 28-year-old told China Daily during a Weibo broadcast last week.

"Injuries are inevitable for all athletes. For us, the journey of pushing our limits is like walking along a cliff edge. We can easily be injured, so an important task for us is to learn how to manage injuries.

"This season is sort of like a downturn in my career. The constant injuries have taken a toll on my performances this year. But all athletes face ups and downs in their career."

Xie, the 200-meter Asian record holder, sped to another milestone over the distance at this summer's Tokyo Olympics where he became the first Chinese to make the 200m semifinals at the Games. He was also part of the Chinese 4x100m relay team that impressed with a fourth-place finish in the final.

A month later, however, Xie was obviously not in peak condition as he failed to defend his 100m and 200m titles at the National Games in Xi'an, bagging two silvers.

True to form, he is maintaining a philosophical outlook about those disappointments.

"Failure is also an inevitable part of our careers. I noticed recently that some fans are really disappointed in me. But we athletes feel deep disappointment ourselves. We only grow as athletes via a combination of success and failure," Xie said.

"No athlete can reach the peak of his career at the very beginning. Even Usain Bolt suffered failures in the early stages of his career. He grew step by step. Our journey to success always begins from failure. So an important lesson for us is how to cope with failure. Life goes on after a failure and more challenges await in the future.

"I always like to share my experiences of failure with the younger athletes. Many people like to share their success stories and set grand goals for others. But they don't tell you how hard it can be along the road to success."

Xie shot to prominence in 2019 when he became the first Chinese to dip under the 20-second mark in the 200m by clocking an Asian-record 19.88 at a Diamond League meet in London. Later that year in Doha, he became the first Chinese to reach the men's 200m final at the world championships.

In 2018, Xie blazed to victory in 9.97 sec at a meet in France, becoming just the third Asian to run a sub-10 100m. Despite his current injury woes, he believes he can continue to lower his personal bests.

"For each 0.01 second improvement we make on the track, we need to put in huge efforts in training," said Xie.

"In the 100-meter sprint, we aim for 46 to 48 steps. So we need to focus on each detail and try to execute each step perfectly. The improvement on each step leads to the improvement of the final result."