Seizing the opportunity

In 2016, 13-year-old Long was selected from Hebei's provincial diving team to join in training with the national diving team.

However, after three months, while the three female teammates who went with him stayed, Long was sent back.

"Back then, I felt young and unburdened, still confident in continuing my training," he recalled. However, the same frustrating situation recurred in 2019, 2020 and 2022.

In March 2023, after Long won third place in the men's individual 3m springboard at a national diving championships held in Shanghai, he received a fifth invitation from the national diving training team.

Despite feeling somewhat disheartened, he was determined to "seize the chance".

He was paired with Wang, who was an Olympic medalist at Tokyo 2020.

The duo trained together for less than a month and went on to win the gold in the men's synchronized 3m springboard event at the World Aquatics Diving World Cup 2023 Super Final in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, in April last year.

Subsequently, at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships, World Aquatics Diving World Cup 2024 and other international events, the pair was consistently climbing to the top step of the medal podium.

Long describes Wang as a "great" person who helped him better understand his responsibilities.

"My skills are inferior to his, but over a year of training and competition, he continued to believe in me, leading me forward. There is much for me to learn from him," said Long.

Long's knack for seizing opportunities is also evident in his passion for music.

As he was constantly listening to music, an idea sprouted in his mind: "One day, I want to write my own song."

In 2020, at the age of 17, he had a crush on a girl. "I wanted to express my feelings with a song I had written myself," Long explained.

Melodies popped into his head, prompting him to hum and record each melody using voice messages on WeChat. He then started writing lyrics.

"It was quite challenging at first. I didn't know how to use lyrics to describe 'wind' and 'rain', or how to express the emotions of liking someone."

Despite enduring intense training during the day, his musical creation kept him awake for two days and nights.

With the help of some simple editing and synthesizer software, he completed a song titled Good Night and uploaded it onto the Netease Cloud Music platform.

Two years later, he purchased some proper music recording equipment and set it up in his dorm at the diving training center.

"I really wanted to meet friends in the music industry who could help me create better songs. I wanted to learn the songwriting process."

One night, in August 2022, he attended a gig at a live house in Qinhuangdao featuring local rappers. "As I stood in the audience, I thought, 'if I were to perform, what kind of music style would I choose?'"

After the show, again, he seized his opportunity, approaching the performers, expressing his desire to learn music creation from them. They added him on WeChat and invited him to join a group chat for music lovers.

"One day, one of the members in the group shared a demo of a song she had written, hoping to get some feedback. When I listened to it, I thought her singing was great. I was surprised to discover that there were people in the group who were seriously involved in making and singing songs," Long said.

Consequently, he began to meet more musically inclined friends, collaborating with them on recordings, or seeking help with developing musical arrangements.

So far, he has six songs uploaded on Netease Cloud Music.

In late August, Long returned to his hometown in Rongjiang county to perform an original hip-hop track and participate in China's hugely popular Village Super League soccer tournament, an event with its roots in his home county.

Then, on Sept 22, he performed at the Greater Bay Area Film Concert in Macao, alongside popular Chinese actor and singer Huang Zihongfan.

"In the future, I hope to have more opportunities to perform and to interact with everyone through music," he said.

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