On December 19, 2024, the Supreme People's Procuratorate announced that it would legally arrest Gou Zhongwen, the former director of the General Administration of Sport. As a core leader in the sports field, Gou Zhongwen's actions during his tenure deeply affected Liu Guoliang and Cai Zhenhua.
Since the investigation into Gou Zhongwen began in May, more than six months have passed, and now there is finally a result, which has excited all netizens.
So, what did Gou Zhongwen do during his tenure? Why has he become the focus of attention on the Internet?
Before 2016, the Chinese sports world had hardly heard of Gou Zhongwen's name. As for why he could suddenly become the highest leader of the sports administration, it all started with the resignation of the then director, Liu Peng.
When Liu Peng was about to step down, everyone speculated about the new director.
As the teacher of national table tennis mainstays Liu Guoliang and Kong Linghui, Cai Zhenhua, who represented our country in international events such as the World Table Tennis Championships and the Olympics and became a world champion many times, became the most speculated candidate at the time.
But just when everyone thought Cai Zhenhua was about to take office, the position of director was suddenly given to Gou Zhongwen, who had nothing to do with the sports world.
Before this, Gou Zhongwen had been serving as the dean of the Electronic Information Department and had never been involved in the sports world.
Everyone believed that as a key position, the director of the General Administration of Sport should be someone who understands sports. Therefore, after the announcement of this appointment, people who were paying attention to this matter were confused.
Just when everyone hadn't figured out what was going on, Gou Zhongwen set the "first fire" of the three fires of the new official on Cai Zhenhua.
It turned out that since Gou Zhongwen took office, he had always been unfriendly to Cai Zhenhua, who had competed with him for the position of director.
In the face of important competition and training decisions, he ignored the professional suggestions put forward by Cai Zhenhua and even thought he was very "obstructive."
Thus, Gou Zhongwen waved his hand and kicked Cai Zhenhua out of the General Administration of Sport, making him serve as the vice-chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and completely leaving the sports circle.
After transferring Cai Zhenhua, Gou Zhongwen still felt it was not enough because almost everyone here was "a group" with Cai Zhenhua. Faced with this situation, Gou Zhongwen decided to carry out a "blood change" of the key personnel in the sports circle.
To ensure that the people in the sports circle were beneficial to himself, Gou Zhongwen targeted Liu Guoliang, who was popular at the time and had won glory for the country many times, during the "blood change."
As we all know, as the head coach of the national table tennis team, experienced Liu Guoliang has always been in a central position in the team and is an indispensable part in the hearts of all national table tennis players.
But it was such an authoritative person who, shortly after Gou Zhongwen took office, had his coaching duties cancelled due to concerns about being overstepped.
Gou Zhongwen pretended to promote Liu Guoliang to the Table Tennis Association under the pretext of promotion, letting him serve as the vice-chairman there.
Although it is somewhat related to table tennis, it is still secondary, and no matter what you do, you have to follow the instructions of the chairman. More importantly, as vice-chairman, he can no longer continue to manage the affairs of the national table tennis team.
If Gou Zhongwen appoints some other people to serve as the head coach of the national table tennis team, then the management and training of the national table tennis team will not be up to him.
Therefore, everyone with discerning eyes knows that Liu Guoliang, who seems to have been promoted, has actually been "weakened."
But what Gou Zhongwen never expected was that this seemingly ordinary transfer caused a great response in the national table tennis team and led to the later shocking "June 23 strike" of the national table tennis team.
At that time, everyone in the national table tennis team was participating in the tense ITTF World Tour. During the intermission, they learned that Coach Liu Guoliang was about to be transferred away.
After figuring out the ins and outs of the matter, in order to express their dissatisfaction, national table tennis players including Ma Long, Zhang Jike, Xu Xin, Wang Hao, and Fan Zhendong protested by not participating in the competition.
At the same time, they also posted articles on their respective social media accounts to complain about the reasons for not participating in the competition, exposing the true evil face of Gou Zhongwen to netizens and fans across the country, as well as his heinous acts.
But after they made such a fuss, Liu Guoliang, who had already been transferred, not only did not come back but almost faced punishment from the General Administration of Sport.
In order not to let the matter continue to ferment and to protect Liu Guoliang from controversy, Ma Long and others had to publish an apology letter online, which gradually calmed the public opinion.
The reform of the national table tennis team not only failed to play any role but also pushed himself to the cusp of the storm. Gou Zhongwen was very angry about this. Later, he changed the "front line" and placed the reform of the sports world in other places.
On February 27, 2020, Gou Zhongwen forced the implementation of an "athletic skills competition" among athletes under the pretext that all athletes need to develop comprehensively.
According to his requirements, whether it is table tennis, badminton, or long-distance running, all athletes participating in sports competitions must exercise and test according to the same physical fitness standards.
Unified standards are indeed a good thing, but it also depends on what fields and aspects. As a sports world where each project has unique requirements, unified training requirements are definitely not conducive to development.
Take the most common diving as an example. If you blindly follow Gou Zhongwen's standards and ignore body management, increasing muscle training will cause huge splashes due to increased weight, seriously affecting the competition results and performance.
But Gou Zhongwen doesn't understand the principle of "doing things according to local conditions and teaching materials." Under his forced unified standards, the normal training rhythm of athletes has been seriously disrupted.
Many athletes often have to give up competitions they have prepared for a long time because they cannot meet the unified standards. These include powerful athletes like Fu Yuanhui and Ye Shiwen.
This incident triggered great dissatisfaction among netizens, who criticized Gou Zhongwen for "commanding without understanding," and even called for him to "leave the sports circle."
Even so, Gou Zhongwen still believed that his decision was correct. He believed that under his "wise leadership," the Chinese sports world would surely achieve greater success.
With such "mysterious confidence," Gou Zhongwen shifted his focus to the Chinese football world.
In order to boost the confidence of football players, Gou Zhongwen formulated a ridiculous rule: no matter which country they compete against, as long as the Chinese team scores a goal, it must be counted as 1.5 goals.
This decision aroused people's dissatisfaction. Everyone felt that this method was unfair and very hypocritical. Even if they really won the match, it would not be a fair victory.
It is worth mentioning that Chinese football did not disappoint everyone. Even under the condition of scoring 1.5 points for a goal, the Chinese team continued to lose in the competition and eventually returned to the bottom of the rankings.
Faced with this situation, Gou Zhongwen, eager to improve the strength of the national football team, spent a large amount of money to create a "Evergrande National Team" for the CSL clubs.
He originally thought that "with great wealth comes brave men," and the players would improve their strength in such a high-investment quality environment. But not only was there no effect, but it also once led to the prevalence of corruption.
During Gou Zhongwen's tenure, his various improper behaviors caused serious damage and huge losses to the national sports world.
In 2022, Gou Zhongwen, who made no contribution to the sports world, chose to resign and has since been serving as deputy director of the ethnic committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and other positions.
In May 2024, influenced by the Li Tie case, Gou Zhongwen was officially investigated.
After more than six months of review, in December of the same year, the superior authorities issued a dual-opening decision to Gou Zhongwen, formally ending his tenure in state organs.
Now, Gou Zhongwen, who has deeply harmed the sports world, has been officially arrested. Such an outcome is not only pleasing to the people but also finally brought hope and light to the Chinese sports world.
At the same time, we also hope that the next leader will not follow Gou Zhongwen's old path and look forward to leading Chinese sports to higher levels.
Information sources:
[1] Red Star News: Gou Zhongwen, former director of the General Administration of Sport, was "dual-opened," and the notification stated that he seriously damaged the political ecology of the sports system.
[2] Beijing News: Liu Guoliang no longer serves as the head coach of the