Lifting Taiwan's Spirits

It is a Sunday at the National Sports Training Center in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District, and there is not the same commotion as one finds during training periods on weekdays. The woman standing before us, with shoulder-­length hair and a slim physique, is Kuo Hsing-­chun, whose brilliant and dominant weightlifting performance at this year’s Tokyo Olympics won her the gold medal.

Kuo Hsing-chun lifted 133 kg in the clean and jerk and 103 kg in the snatch for a total of 236 kg, setting new Olympic records and winning the gold medal in her event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. (courtesy of the Sports Administration, MOE)

Dancing with barbells

Taiwan’s medal count in Tokyo equaled the preceding three Olympics combined. We were able to get such good results, says national weightlifting coach Lin Geng Neng, because there is no time difference between Taiwan and Japan, and under the threat of Covid-19 athletes were espe­cially careful. For example, in the Olympic village they took their meals straight back to their dorm rooms to eat. Athletes from around the world were grateful to Japan for holding an orderly games and providing a stage where they could show what they are made of. Kuo Hsing-­chun, who has competed in more than 20 countries, says Japan is her favorite because “I love eating soba [buckwheat noodles]!”

In contrast to past competitions, when she was tense and at pains to give her all, at the Tokyo Games Kuo—who made a point of wearing earrings and a bracelet—was able to manifest the beauty as well as the power of weight­lifting and achieved a state of “dancing with barbells.”

She seemed to lift in a very relaxed manner, yet was able to lift a barbell weighing more than twice her own body weight. Besides using her core muscle strength, devel­oped through years of training, Kuo, who is currently an associate-­professor-ranked weight trainer at Fu Jen Catholic University, explains: “Weightlifting may look simple, but in fact it’s a full-body sport and there are many details to pay attention to. For instance, when you lift the barbell you have to make sure it’s as close to your body as possible, because a straight upward lift is the shortest distance. But lifting the weight straight upward and putting it down again straight downward involves coordinating the whole body and using the muscles in the right order.”

For Kuo’s birthday last year, her coach Lin Geng Neng gave her cake shaped like a medalists’ podium. (courtesy of Kuo Hsing-chun)

Ten years’ training for ten seconds on stage

Kuo met Coach Lin Geng Neng when she was studying at the Affiliated Physical Education Senior High School of National Taitung University, and he has coached her through more than a decade of inter­national competitions. After training with Lin for two-and-a-half years, in 2013 Kuo won four gold medals in one fell swoop, at the Asian Weightlifting Championships, the ­Universiade, the East Asian Games, and the World Weightlifting Cham­pion­ships. The World Weightlifting Champion­ships were especially important because it was the first time Kuo had won a world championship medal, and the first time a Taiwanese weightlifter had done so in 14 years.

These glittering medals were the result of Kuo faithfully following her coach’s instructions, and her own hard work and self-discipline.

For many years Lin Geng Neng has instilled in Kuo the idea that “tough training is essential for building up your strength, and the harder you train the more you build ­yourself up.” Starting from her freshman year in high school, Lin forbade Kuo from dating and from casually enjoying soft drinks. “You mustn’t put on weight—the only thing that can go up is the number of plates on the barbell!”

Kuo says with a laugh, “At first I ate stuff on the sly, but over time I grew accustomed to my diet and stopped craving food.” She originally assumed she could start dating after turning 25, but to enable her to compete, each year the ban on relationships was auto­matic­ally extended for another year. The restriction could have been lifted last year, but in order to prepare for the Olympics Kuo focused strictly on training with no distractions.

Kuo wrote the phrase she uses when reminding Lin Geng Neng not to get angry on a whiteboard at the weightlifting training venue.

Turning helplessness into strength

One day in 2014, while Kuo was working out, she accidentally let a 141-kg barbell fall on her right thigh, causing a tear through 70% of the muscle. She devoted herself to rehabilitation, and after four months of recuperation she competed at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South ­Korea, where she came in fourth.

Kuo describes herself as actually being more optim­istic after her injury, and more able to adapt her mind and emotions to pressure. She says: “I think I was very lucky, as I didn’t injure my knee and didn’t rupture a tendon.”

In fact, at the instant the accident occurred, Kuo discovered she couldn’t move her leg. As she waited for the ambu­lance to arrive, cold and in pain, “a lot of ­dramas played out in my head.” But Kuo transformed this long wait and her feeling of helplessness into strength. In 2015, using prize money from competitions, she donated an ambulance costing nearly NT$2 million to the St. Camillus Hospital in Magong, Penghu County, to help people living on these offshore islands access urgent medical care as fast as possible, in hopes of minimizing regrettable outcomes.

In the “Our Heroes!” parade, held on National Day, “Goddess of Weightlifting” Kuo Hsing-chun led the way through crowds that greeted our Olympic team members with waves of cheering.

Taiwan helped me lift!

For both coach and athlete, winning only the bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics when both had been set on taking home gold was the biggest disappointment in their careers.

After returning to Taiwan Kuo went back to training, and began preparing for the 2017 Universiade. The soft-­spoken Kuo recalls: “Luckily I was able to train with Hung Wan-ting. We were friends as well as competitors, and we had a blast training together!”

At the 2017 Universiade, which was held in Taiwan, Kuo set a new world record in the 58 kilo weight class by lifting 142 ­kg in the clean and jerk. At the press conference she choked up as she said, “I believe all the people of Taiwan helped me with that lift!” Even Lin Geng Neng had praise for her: “Hsing-chun is the first athlete in a sport with weight classes to set a world record here in Taiwan!”

Kuo hopes her personal story will encourage others to be able to set aside their fears and courageously face up to difficulties.

No challenge that cannot be overcome

Weightlifting is a sport in which both the level of ­difficulty and the risk of injury increase with weight. Five years ago Coach Lin began using the barbell trajectory analysis and tracking system developed by Ho Wei-hua, former deputy CEO of the National Sports Training Center. He applied these in daily training to correct the motions of athletes and increase precision in the sport of weightlifting.

In 2019, with support from the Gold Plan of the Ministry of Education (MOE), conditioning coach Cheng Yu-erh and physical therapist Chou Yi-lun joined Kuo’s coaching staff, forming a “Gold Team” with Lin Geng Neng. Spending time with Kuo from morning to night, they gained a deep respect for her indomitable spirit, her resili­ence in the face of disappointment, and her determination to make breakthroughs in training. They even started to affection­ately call her “Crazy Woman.”

Kuo admits it is in her nature to strive to outshine ­others. When training she has to reach a specific goal, and if she can’t do it she won’t rest. After being injured again last year, she began to learn to accept suggestions from her Gold Team and adjust her training regimen. The great results she achieved that year despite her injury were all thanks to the efforts of the coaching team, she says.

After her disappointment in Rio, Kuo adjusted her mindset away from striving for medals and instead focused her attention on target weights that she set herself for the clean and jerk and for the snatch. Over the course of more than ten competitions from the 2017 Asian Weightlifting Championships to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, she was invincible.

Kuo’s mother was only 18 when she gave birth to Hsing-­chun. She was raised by her maternal grandmother while her mother was busy working various ­casual jobs. She has only set eyes on her father once thus far in her life. Kuo feels that sports has enabled her to divert her attention away from unhappiness and insulate herself from the ­effects of the environment she grew up in.

The good-natured Kuo still remembers something that her first weightlifting coach told her: “If you are fine, then everyone else will be fine.” Besides frequently donating her prize money to charity, she also hopes her story can empower others.

As for the future, Kuo Hsing-chun will continue to use her weightlifting abilities to bring positive energy to Taiwan.