How skating changes the life of Fan Kexin and her family

Fan Kexin's father Fan Shizhong and mother Nie Guiling display their daughter's photos on February 22, 2022 in Qitaihe,Heilongjiang Province. Photo: Wang Qi/Global Times

On February 5, when Fan Kexin, together with her teammates, won the first gold medal of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics for Team China in the short-track speed skating mixed team relay, her parents, Fan Shizhong and Nie Guiling, hugged each other and shed tears as they watched the live broadcast in Qitaihe, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, some 1,600 kilometers away from Beijing.

In an exclusive interview with the Global Times on Tuesday, Fan Kexin's father Fan Shizhong and her mother Nie Guiling shared dozens of photos and stories about their beloved daughter. They said the efforts behind their daughter's gold medal are unimaginable. It makes her the fourth Winter Games champion - in this and previous Games - from the small coal mining city with a population of fewer than 700,000 people.

Fan Kexin's parents live in an 80-square-meter apartment that the local government offered them a few years ago. In the clean and bright rooms, the photos and souvenirs on display are almost all related to Fan Kexin's career. Although life has improved drastically, the warm and loving family spend less time together as Fan Kexin is so busy. The couple is still emotional when they recall the tough experience when the family of four had to live in a 7-square-meter basement after a business failure.

Fan Kexin's parents were unable to give her a privileged childhood.

Her father Fan Shizhong, who contracted polio when he was 2, said he was in the clothing business in the 1980s, and later switched to pig farming due to cervical and lumbar diseases. But then he lost tens of thousands of yuan, the family's entire savings, so the family from a village came to the city of Qitaihe to ask relatives for help. Their new business was repairing shoes and bicycles.

"At that time, we were a family of four with only 300 yuan [$47.5]," the father said.

Her mother recalled that the family lived in a narrow basement, cold and damp, with bunk beds. "We have no toilet, no access to water so we had to go to someone else's home to get water," the mother said. "The kid saw everything in the family and was sensible from an early age."

Nie said her daughter loved to dance when she was a child, but when she heard that the costume and tuition fees were 150 yuan, she went home and told her mother that she did not like it anymore. On the way home from school, Fan Kexin collected water bottles and sold them to buy stationery.

Fan Shizhong said he often told his daughter the importance of having a confident and self-reliant mind. According to him, there were about 40 athletes in Qitaihe in the same group with Fan Kexin, but none became professional except her and another who is in the Inner Mongolia team.

Due to a lack of equipment, Fan Kexin made a training plan for every year when she went home during the various holidays.

"Because I was only 50 kilograms, my daughter let me ride on her back, then she repeatedly did squats to strengthen her leg power… As a father, my tears were in my heart," Fan Shizhong said.

The day Fan Kexin won China's first gold medal at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, "we couldn't sleep," Nie said.

Rare reunions

Among the dozens of photos her parents showed off, some record her with long hair when she first went to the ice, some show her joy at winning national competitions, and some witness her exuberance in a national team jersey. More importantly, there are four family photos.

A recent family photo, taken in 2021, shows Fan Kexin's older brother and sister-in-law, as well as her young nephew. In the hard times, her brother dropped out of junior high and drove a cab to support the family.

"In the 12 years with the national team, she has never spent the Spring Festival holidays with us at home as her annual vacation is in April… So we keep the habit of taking a family photo to commemorate the rare reunion," Fan Shizhong said.

"The Spring Festival holidays for my family are the days when my daughter comes home," Nie said.

Nie said her daughter has a habit of reporting only good news rather than bad to the family, which forced her to learn about Fan Kexin's life from her teammates' parents. After winning gold in Beijing, Fan sent messages to her parents, telling them to have a good rest and avoid being overly jubilant.

The medal cabinet in Fan Kexin's home Photo: Wang Qi/Global Times

Fan Kexin and her teammates won the bronze medal in the women's 3,000 meters relay at the Beijing Games on February 13. Afterward, Fan Kexin dropped to her knees and kissed the ice. For the 28-year-old medalist, one gold and one bronze in Beijing mean a near-perfect career.

Nie said that Fan has never had a day off since she started the sport 20 years ago.

"We both said she needed a break," Nie said, disclosing that she was worried about her daughter's future as "handsome guys are being picked over."

"But every time we say that, my daughter gets impatient, saying she will continue to fight for the honor of the country."

My daughter said she wants to be on the skating rink all her life, as the sports that have changed our lives is one that she held passion for since she was a kid, Nie noted.

"Her response always makes us speechless," the mother said.