Xie Wenjun, 31, won his third straight men's 110-meter hurdles gold medal by finishing the race at 13.37 seconds at the Chinese National Games in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province on Tuesday. When Xie received his medal, he was standing next to his coach, 66-year-old Sun Haiping.

Most people began to hear Sun's name when Liu Xiang set a new world record of 12.88 seconds to win the men's 110m hurdles gold at the Summer Olympics in Athens in 2004. Sun was Liu's coach back then.

Xie expressed his gratitude to Sun right after the victory in Xi'an. "Having retained the title at the National Games, I want to first thank Sun Haiping for his help in all these years," Xie posted on Sina Weibo.

"Xie had his best performance of this year and he did it off an unfavorable start. He was trailing at the beginning but he didn't give up. He was catching up hurdle by hurdle and reached the leading position after the eighth hurdle. Old hands are better than green horns," said Sun after the race.

It has been 37 years since Sun joined the Shanghai athletics team and became the hurdles coach in 1984. From Chen Yanhao in 1993 to Xie in 2021, the athletes coached by Sun dominated all of the eight men's 110m hurdles gold medals.

In fact, Sun could have retired in 2016 if he wanted to, but he did not want to leave the athletes he trained. Neither did the Shanghai athletics team want him to go. That's why the two sides agreed that Sun would continue to coach the team.

"I have reached the retirement age, but I kept thinking. Can I cultivate more competitive athletes for the team when I'm still capable?" Sun told The Paper, a Shanghai-based Chinese digital newspaper.

The 66-year-old believes the Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2022 is the bigger test for Xie. "Competition in next year's Asian Games will be tough. There are multiple foreign athletes whose best records are 13.17 or 13.20 seconds. We will work together and try to do better," said Sun.

Xie was not the only athlete trained by Sun in the men's 110m hurdles final in Xi'an. Nineteen-year-old Qin Weibo finished fifth at 13.72 seconds, which was his personal best as well. Qin reminded many of Liu because his best performance at 16 years old was 14.20 seconds, close enough to Liu's 14.19 seconds at the same age,

"I have never seen anyone with better muscle quality than that of Liu Xiang. Qin still needs to work on that. Let's be patient with him," said Sun. But he still holds high expectations on Qin. "He was 0.3 second faster this year. That's good improvement. The Paris Olympics is three years away. We will try to enhance his performance during this period of time. I want to lead him to the international stage."

"As long as I'm still coaching, I want to make sure that Chinese athletes dominated the hurdles events in Asia," that is Sun's commitment to Chinese athletics.