By sportswriter Wang Zijiang
LONDON, May 30 (Xinhua) -- In the summer of 2008, Alex Hua Tian's much-anticipated Olympic debut at his home Beijing Games turned out to be a heartbreaking defeat. He fell off his horse at the cross country competition and returned home without a result.
He was just 18, the youngest rider in Olympic history competing in eventing, a sport that few in China had heard about.
11 years on, Hua Tian helped China secure their first ever eventing team ticket to next summer's Tokyo Olympic Games at a special qualifier held in Saumur, France last week. He described it as a "fairytale" and an "unbelievable" success.
Sitting in his stable yard near Manchester, he cannot stop thinking about that summer in Hong Kong, where the equestrian sports of the Beijing Olympic Games took place.
"It was very difficult for me to come to terms with the fairytale being broken in the way I was falling off at the eighth fence at the cross country. It took a long time, eight years, to get back to my next Olympic Games."
"I was young and naive," he told Xinhua.
The wound-healing process was long and painful. He narrowly missed out on qualification for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, where he was born from an English mother and a Chinese father.
The 2016 Rio Olympic Games was a turning point for his career. Hoping for top 20, he finished eighth.
"I thought if everything went well, I would be very delighted with top 20," he said. "Eighth place, or even top 10 was not what I expected."
He admitted that his favorite question from the media is always about the "goal" at the next Olympic Games.
"The results at Rio give me huge amount of confidence," he said. "I have to be very clear that I had a lot of luck. A lot of things went my way. If a few more things went my way in Tokyo, it could be one of the results you dream of."
He does not want to hide his ambition, saying the dream is the Olympic gold medal. Even if it does not come in Tokyo, it might come later as long as this dream is always there.
"Everybody's dream is the Olympic champion.
"You look at the Rio individual show jumping gold medalist Nick Skelton of Britain. He broke his neck once in his career and had a hip replacement. He nearly won the gold medal three or four times in his career. Finally it wasn't until he was 58 years that he won the individual gold medal.
"That is the true definition of the Olympic dreams. And for me personally, I look forward to a long career. I have a few more Olympic Games left. If during one of those the stars are aligned and somebody up there looks down on me and gives me opportunity, then I think it would be wonderful. If I don't win gold, it's not going to stop me doing what I love doing."
Hua Tian also warned his Chinese teammates that winning the tickets to Tokyo does not mean the team will be sure to be there.
"This is the first step of the process," he said. "We have to achieve something called the Olympic MER, which stands for Minimum Eligibility Requirement. Although MER is not that difficult to achieve at four-star level, it still means that the other Chinese teammates have to take one step up from three-star level to four-star level. That is one big step."
He called for the Chinese Equestrian Association to invest more to this end to avoid "tragic" possibility.
"We need to buy more horses and the riders need to know these horses and we need to get our certificate capability of MER by Jan. 1, 2020. We need to get our individual MER by middle June next year."
Hua Tian, now a super star back in China, is optimistic about the Chinese team's Olympic debut.
"We stay positive about our opportunities, but at the same time we are realistic about the challenges. We discuss them and share experiences and address them directly. We have done so well up to now. We just need to stay on the course and keep a cool head."
