Lang
Ping (CHN)
The Iron
Hammer
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I have to agree with
those who think that Lang Ping is the best player volleyball has
ever seen. For those who have the opportunity to watch old
matches on tape of the Chinese team between 1981 and 1985, you
will quickly see a resemblance between Lang Ping's overpowering
level of play with those of the 90s star, Mireya
Luis. Theirs were clean, well-placed, powerful
attacks, always at crucial moments of the match. Some people say
that Mireya Luis is the best volleyball player ever. I would
argue that Lang Ping was more than just power spectacle—she
was smart, swift, and had a more varied offence than Mireya
Luis. Of course, Mireya hit inside the ten-toot line at will,
but that doesn't necessarily imply a better sense of ball
placement. All in all, I think Lang Ping edges Mireya by a
narrow margin to take the All-Time MVP award.
Both of these players squared off against each other in the
mid-1980s. The only matches I have seen between these two
players are the two 1985 Gala Matches. Lang Ping won those
matches for China, with Mireya doing as much as she could but to
no avail. She had to wait some five years or so to step up as
"the Lang Ping of her time". It seems funny, that even
when Lang Ping didn't play at the 1986 World Championships in
Czechoslovakia, she and fellow outside hitter Zhang
Rongfang quit playing to coach the Chinese team.
Eventually, they played Cuba in the final, defeating the
Caribbeans 3-1 in a show of obvious superiority (the third set
notwithstanding). So even then Lang Ping had something to say to
the powerful Cubans! |
| She retired for a
while, living in the USA and assisting Laurel Kessel at the
University of New Mexico for some years, but then she was called
back to play five years later with a totally new generation of
Chinese players for the World Championships held in her own
country. Once again, she demonstrated her ability to carry a
team, and took China to the final against the Olympic champions
from Seoul 88—the USSR—but China gave way and lost 3-1. |
| Five
years after the 1990 World's, Lang Ping was offered the job of
coaching the Chinese national team. The first half of the 90s
were not good years for China at all, posting 7th
and 8th
places in major international competitions, and the Chinese
programme was in desperate need of revitalisation. She accepted,
I hear, after much thinking, for it wasn't so easy for her to
drop her studies and career path in the USA in order to take on
such a cumbersome task. She finally accepted the offer with the
Atlanta Olympics as their primary goal. What she found in human
material was a group of rough diamonds: an inexperienced setter
in He Qi taken from the middle ranks of China's domestic league,
two middle blockers in Wang Yi and Lai Yawen who had not been
used to their full potential, a clumsy lefty in Cui
Yongmei, and a powerful but frustrated outside
hitter in Sun Yue
(who many have called her "successor"). Leave it to
Lang Ping to mend the wounds of 1994, adding fresh players from
the Junior team—Li Yan, Wu Yongmei, Wang Lina—and bringing
an air of openness and fun back into the team. (Controversies
had followed the Chinese athletes around for several years—mainly
the swimmers—for the use of illegal stimulants. Wu
Dan herself underwent this very controversy in
Barcelona, bringing the volleyball players under international
scrutiny as well.) |
Lang Ping hits against a
block-less Peru in the 1982 World Championship final in Lima. China
won the title by an easy 3-0 and began its streak of three major
international tournament wins: two World Championships and one
Olympic Games.
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By taking
that job, Lang Ping had a lot to prove to the world: she was the
only woman in charge of a whole national team and its programme.
In some articles I read, Lang Ping seemed to have fused the more
open, relaxed, and at the same time, entertaining way of coaching
that she picked up in the USA with the more rigid but
hard-working, disciplined Chinese methods. She made sure her
players had fun practicing, and doing fun things besides
volleyball so that in the end, they would all become friends. I
read a quote of hers in which she told her players at the Atlanta
Olympics, "I speak English. I'll take the pressure. I'll deal
with the press. You go in there, play volleyball and have some
fun." Her words, like a magic wand, worked wonders.Lang
Ping's intelligence and knowledge took China back into the Olympic
spotlight, but in a funny twist of fate, they succumbed to the
power of Mireya Luis and her hard banging team of trees. As much
as the Chinese tried to play smart to avoid the Cuban block, the
violent spikes of the Cubans wore the inexperienced Chinese down.
Despite the 3-1 loss however, Lang Ping helped earn a new China
its former respect.
< Lang
Ping celebrates a point en route to a 3-0 victory over the USA at
the 84 Los Angeles Olympics. Though the games were boycotted by
the East Bloc and Cuba, China and the USA battled at the highest
levels of volleyball for the coveted medal.
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| She continued as the
head coach for two more years, leading up to the 1998 World
Championships in Japan and again taking her team to the final. But
once again, the power of the Cuban offence was too much for the
Chinese team (they had added the skilled but inexperienced setter
Zhu Yunying and amazing rookie sensation Qiu
Aihua to their lineup). This time around, Cuba won
in three close sets. Lang Ping was criticised for not being able
to win the matches that mattered, but more so, for barely edging
South Korea in a couple of major instances and then losing to them
at the 98 World's. Apparently, there is no worse humiliation for
China than losing to either regional rival, Korea or Japan. |
Lang Ping as coach
giving instructions at the 96 Atlanta Olympics. [FIVB Photo
Archives] |
| Regardless
of their defeat to Korea in pool play, China still made it to the
final in Japan 98, so all these reproaches are unfair. Lang Ping
is as great a team builder as she was a team player. She retired
from coaching in 1999 (I heard that she did so for health reasons)
apparently leaving the stress of coaching and traveling in order
to lead a quieter life. Certainly Lang Ping has written her name
in the annals of volleyball history as one of the most complete
bodies and minds in this sport.
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