Olympic champion Chen Zhong is regarded as a strong-minded taekwondo
player, but there is one thing which could make the sports star feel scared --
Chinese traditional treatment acupuncture.
The 24-year-old Chen clinched a gold medal for China in the women's over 72kg
taekwondo competition as she beat Evgeniya Karimova of Uzbekistan 4-0 at the
Doha Asian Games on Sunday.
One week before flying to Doha, Chen strained her right leg in the training.
Her doctor Zhu Lihua, who has been taking care of Chen from 1999, advised her to
take acupuncture to ease the pain.
"She refused saying that she was scared of the needles," Zhu said.
However, Zhu is more determined than Chen and managed to let Chen obey her.
"She then begged me to reduce the numbers of the needles, from six to three,
but I refused either. Acupuncture is the only safe way to relieve the pain as
soon as possible," Zhu added.
Acupuncture is a technique, as for relieving pain or inducing partial
anesthesia, in which thin silver needles are inserted into the body at specific
points.
"It really took effects on her and she came to Doha without pain. She then
became very happy and confident." Zhu said.
The first sentence that Chen spoke out after she attended the medal ceremony
on Sunday was "I want to thank all the people who supported me, especially my
doctor. Zhu takes good care of me and I respect her."
Chen is the only taekwondo female player who won gold medals in two Olympic
Games in a row, in Sydney and Athens, and the most popular star in Chinese
taekwondo field.
She suffered knee injury and took the operation last year and it was her
first time to appear in an international event since her recovery.
"I am not sacred of operations because you lost your consciousness during the
operation. However, I couldn't stand the needles," Chen explained.
"If Zhu was not tough enough (to ask me to accept acupuncture),I would not
win the gold medal here today," she added.
"This gold medal is my first in Asiad, and it gave me confidence to prepare
for the Beijing Olympics."
Though capping two Olympic golds, Chen only took the bronze medal in the 1998
Bangkok Asiad and the silver in the 2002 Busan Asiad.
"I will be more careful to avoid injury in the future," Chen said.
