When Chen Yunxia, Zhang Ling, Lyu Yang and Cui Xiaotong won the gold medal in rowing women's quadruple sculls final for China at the Tokyo Olympics on July 28, they helped their coach Zhang Xiuyun realize a decades-long dream.

"I was so excited at that time but I did not cry," said Zhang Xiuyun in an interview with Xinhua News Agency. "I just felt so relived because I finally completed my mission and realized my dream after so many years."

Zhang Xiuyun won her first world title as a rower at the age of 17 in women's quadruple event at the World Rowing Championships in Racice, Czech Republic in 1993. Three years later, she paired Cao Mianying for women's double sculls event in the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996 and won the silver medal.

Zhang Xiuyun continued to challenge women's single sculls in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, finishing fourth and sixth, respectively.

When she finally won that gold as a coach, she had no regret left.

"I consider myself blessed. It has been my dream to win an Olympic gold medal and I have been chasing that dream for almost 20 years as a rower. That used to be my regret. Having had to retire because of age, I thought I could never realize that dream. But in the Tokyo Olympics, the rowers I coached realized their gold medal dream and helped me do it too. I am so grateful to this era for this," said Zhang Xiuyun.

The four Chinese rowers had won all international events they attended since the World Rowing Championships in Ottensheim, Austria in 2019 and were seen as the biggest champion candidates in Tokyo. In the end, they won the women's quadruple sculls final at 6:05.13, with a dominating lead of 6.23 seconds.

The success from Beijing in 2008 to Tokyo in 2021 convinced Zhang Xiuyun that China already had a working mechanism consisting of talent selection, training and competition attending. Of course, it will require further testing in more events in the future. She said what happened in Tokyo again made her realize how important stamina building is.

Moreover, Chinese rowers' performance in Tokyo proved that it's a correct decision to send Chinese teams outside to train and compete with top rowers in the world as well as adding more elite foreign staff to the coaching group.

"Foreign rowers seem more aggressive than us in the competitions. So we went to their home and try to do the same next to them. We took our teams overseas and train with those who are stronger than us, like our men's sculls team did with the New Zealand national team in Belgium in 2019," said Zhang Xiuyun.

"The arrival of elite foreign staff opened our way to building a strong rowing team. They helped us learn how world's top teams train, compete and protect their athletes' health. We must learn from them, digest what we learn and explore how to apply what we learn before we can grow stronger."

The coach's daughter Liu Langrun has been practicing rowing as well. "As long as she likes doing it, I will support her. Her dream is to go to a good university with rowing culture and tradition," she said.