Give Xu wind and water and he’s in his element
Print Edition
Many medals are on display at Xu Tao’s home in Jiading — a national competition medal, national youth sailboard championship gold medal and a Shanghai youth sailboard championship silver medal among them.
Xu, 20, is the pride and joy of his family and his neighbors in the district.
Sailboarding is a water sport that integrates elements of surfing and sailing. It consists of a board usually 2 to 3 meters long, and a sail to catch the wind.
The mast is connected to the board by a freely rotating universal joint and consists of a mast, 2-sided boom and sail. The sailboarder can adjust the direction of the sail to catch the wind.
It’s a sport that can be enjoyed on rivers, lakes and the open sea. Boards can reach speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour if the wind is right. It’s not the cheapest of sports, with rigs ranging from tens of thousands of yuan. The most expensive can cost several hundred thousand yuan.
Though Jiading has many rivers, there are hardly any waters suitable for sailboarding and Xu was born into a farmer’s family who were not rich.
Sailboarding would have seemed out of his reach, but sport is in his blood.
Xu’s father, Xu Guanghua, is an amateur basketball player and he recalled that his son got into sailboarding by chance.
“My son loved all types of sports such as running, swimming and basketball. I took him along with me when I exercised. When he was 11, I sent him to join the rowing team of the Jiading District Amateur Sports School,” his father said.
Xu Tao was relatively short and weak compared to his sporting counterparts at the school but his willpower was super strong.
“Xu never gives up,” Wang Qin, one of his former trainers, said.
“At that time, he was the shortest among the rowing team’s 20 or so members.
“I can still recall that when we sent to his first training session, Xu arrived at the finish line last. After the training, I heard the faint sound of sobbing coming from a cubicle at the training base.”
Wang said one minute later he saw Xu walked out. He smiled to Wang to greet him and then quietly walked into the training base to practice.
“My heart was touched,” Wang said. After a year, Xu became the top rower.
In 2009, Shanghai hosted a rowing championship and Xu was selected to take part in the canoeing race. He was only 14, but successfully defeated a much stronger rival to become the champion.
On the basis of that excellent performance, Xu was selected to become a member of the Shanghai sailboard team in March, 2010.
The camp has more than 20 talented youths but only seven can become team members and they are selected after three months of brutal competition.
On June 10, 2010, Xu became the top performing youth to be formally enrolled in the team and become a sailboarder on a more professional basis.
Xu now lives at the Chinese National Offshore Sailing Training Base on Dongshan Island in Zhangzhou City in southeast China’s Fujian Province.
Xu has not seen his family members for about a year. When he feels low, he calls his father on the phone.
In addition to his training, Xu runs 30 kilometers a day. His father has visited him and knows how hard his training can be.
“I will always comfort him with these words: a sportsman also has his fatigue times and you just have to do your best,” Xu’s father said.
In May, 2014, the Chinese National Youth Sailboarding Championship was held at Dianshanhu Lake in Shanghai’s Qingpu District. Xu defeated more than 100 opponents from 11 teams to win the championship in his hometown.
Xu’s father went to the lake to see his son sail past the finish line in grand style. “I was really proud of him,” he said.
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