Maintain second place and strive for third place?

Many reporters were stunned when they heard this, and then they realized that the 4x400 meters has three sub-events: men's, women's and mixed. Su Bai meant that at least two of these three events must be won!

This is not quite consistent with the previous analysis on the Internet!

After all, judging from various analytical articles on the Internet, it is not easy to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in the men's 4x400m event.

Through various data comparisons in the past two days, many people believe that if the national team's 4x400m relay team wants to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in the three sub-events, they may only have to compete for ranking points.

Not to mention the men's 4x400m relay, as for the women's team, at the Asian Championships, their time of 3 minutes 33.88 seconds is already the best of the current women's 4x400m relay team. This result, in this World Athletics Relay Championships, is just barely within the standard line of the competition results.

Based on past experience, if the women's team wants to have a chance of reaching the top eight finalists, they must at least be able to run under 3 minutes and 28 seconds.

It is no exaggeration to say that there is a gap of 5 seconds compared with the current results of the women's team.

This kind of gap cannot be eliminated in a short period of time just by working hard.

The reporters thought about all this and guessed that when Su Bai mentioned maintaining the second place and striving for the third place, he must have been referring to the men's 4x400m relay and the mixed 4x400m relay.

After all, the mixed men's and women's 4x400m event had never been included in the Olympic Games before the Tokyo Olympics, and there had never been such a competition in major competitions such as the World Athletics Championships.

Compared with the women's 4x400m, the appearance of the mixed 4x400m event has given an opportunity to teams like China, which lack strength in the women's 4x400m relay alone.

At the airport, because the team members still needed to queue up for security checks, check in luggage, etc., after answering a few questions, Pei Jinan smiled and apologized to the reporters present, and said he had to get busy.

The reporters all know their limits. After all, they can't stop the national team from rushing to complete their competition schedule, right?

So even though they still had many questions in their minds, these reporters still retreated calmly, and then smiled and cheered for the track and field team.

Unexpectedly, after this shout of encouragement, scattered shouts of encouragement also emerged from the surrounding areas.

"Ahhh, come on Qiu Wen! Come on Zhang Shuai!!!"

"Come on, Brother Yu! Go for it!!"

"Sister Dan and Sister Yao, I will always support you!!"

"Coach Xiaobai, you are so young!"

?

The sudden cheering made everyone in the track and field team stunned for a moment. Su Bai and everyone in the track and field team looked to the side and found that while they were being interviewed, there were already many people nearby secretly filming them with their mobile phones. There were also a few girls with telephoto cameras in the distance, and the direction of the camera was also facing them.

There were a lot of people coming and going in the airport, but many of them, whether seeing someone off or traveling, smiled kindly at them and waved their fists, as if to cheer them on.

After making this discovery, everyone on the track and field team had smiles on their faces as they went through the various check-in procedures. The kindness around them and the support from their compatriots also gave the team, which was about to set off, the determination to work harder and go all out.

After Pei Jinan, Su Bai and others led the team members through security check and found the boarding gate, the relevant officials from the Field Management Center were already waiting here.

This World Athletics Relays Championships can be said to be related to the Olympic qualification of all track and field relay events. The Athletics Administration Center cannot but attach great importance to it. Therefore, Jiang Wentao once again led the team in person and was ready to do all the accompanying work for the track and field team.

After everyone gathered together, the athletes and accompanying staff were waiting calmly to board the plane, while Pei Jinan and Su Bai were called aside by Jiang Wentao.

"Were you blocked by reporters outside just now?"

Pei Jinan smiled and said yes, and briefly talked about the question and answer session he had just had with the reporter.

After listening to this, Jiang Wentao didn't say anything else. He just confirmed with Su Bai whether he was confident of securing two Olympic places in the 400-meter relay.

Although Su Bai had just said in the interview with the reporter that he would do his best to maintain the second place and fight for the third place, but when it comes to really being sure... Su Bai shook his head.

As Jiang Wentao and Pei Jinan looked a little nervous, Su Bai said, "We only have a 50% chance of winning the men's 4x400 and the mixed 4x400 this time. Theoretically, our athletes can get into the top half of the race in these two events, but it requires a bit of luck."

In this competition, among the three sub-events of 4x400m, the women's 4x400m relay team had the largest number of participating teams, with a total of 21 teams, while the men's 4x400m and mixed 4x400m teams had 18 teams each.

Among these numerous teams, except for the women's team, the strength of the men's team and the mixed 4x400m relay team is considered to be in the middle. They have a chance to enter the finals, but it is by no means easy.

"For the men's 4x400m, according to the available public information, some teams have replaced their core players, which may have an impact on their results. However, these teams are experienced in handovers, and the core players who replaced them should have had some time to get used to the team. I just don't know how they will perform in the official competitions."

"In the mixed 4x400 event, all teams are relatively unfamiliar with each other. Although most teams have gained some experience, they are still relatively inexperienced. This is also one of the opportunities for our team."

"In general, we have opportunities in both areas, but this opportunity still has its uncertainties."

Su Bai spoke very frankly and directly about these two projects. The gist of it is that the team members need to try their best to have hope of achieving them.

Jiang Wentao nodded. In fact, this was not much different from their previous analysis. The General Administration of Sports had previously issued the task of maintaining the second place and striving for the third place, which was also given after making a corresponding judgment on the current strength of the track and field team. In short, the focus of the 400-meter task was on this "maintaining the second place".

As for the 4x100m relay, it is actually simpler than the 4x400m. Although only Fang Yu from the Chinese team has broken the ten-second mark in the 100m event, and the overall absolute speed of relay runners cannot compete with the Japanese team, which is also an Asian team, the Chinese team has done a very good job in training such as the tacit understanding of passing the baton, and there are not too many obstacles in their fight for the Olympic quota for the 4x100m.

The same is true for the women's team. The current national team's 4x100m women's team has overall strength and is still very likely to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.

After Jiang Wentao confirmed the 100-meter and 400-meter relays with Su Bai and Pei Jinan, he nodded.

Of course, as a world track and field relay competition, this competition is certainly not just about the 4x100m and 4x400m relay races.

In addition to the 4x100 and 4x400 events, whose final rankings are linked to the World Championships in September and the Tokyo Olympics the following year, this year's World Athletics Relays also feature men's and women's 4x200m events. In addition, two new events have been added to this year's competition: the mixed men's and women's 2x2x400m and the mixed shuttle obstacle course.

However, given the current reserve of athletes in the Chinese team, at least Su Bai, is no longer able to pay attention to the newly added mixed 2x2x400m event.

When the track and field team arrived in Yokohama, Japan, it was already the afternoon of May 9th. Receiving by the organizing staff of Yokohama, Japan, the national team smoothly checked into the designated hotel.

As soon as the national team members arrived at the hotel, they were instructed to rest well that night and adjust their condition the next day.

If, in other competitions, the important thing might be the ranking in the finals, then in this competition, the most important thing is whether these teams can get through the preliminaries and qualify for the finals.

For the upcoming two-day competition on the 11th and 12th, even though Pei Jinan and Su Bai did not repeatedly emphasize the need to put pressure on the athletes, the players already knew the importance of the competition.

That night, the players who had just checked into the hotel were trying hard to relieve their pre-match stress and were preparing to have a good rest. They would spend the next day to reserve their physical strength for the battle that would begin the day after tomorrow. However, just as everyone was resting in their respective rooms, there were knocks on the doors of these players' rooms one after another. When these players opened the door, they saw the hotel waiter pushing a food cart and serving them a bowl of hot and fragrant bone soup noodles.

The soup noodles delivered to the team members were obviously freshly cooked. The flexible and slender noodles looked chewy and springy, and were served with a bowl of hot and fragrant noodle soup. The noodle bowl was also garnished with vegetables and crispy golden fried eggs. People felt a sense of happiness as soon as they took a bite of the noodles.

"Wow, where did this noodle come from?"

When the team members received this midnight snack, they couldn't hide the surprise on their faces, and then someone soon understood - wasn't this noodle soup the work of Coach Su Baisu?

When Qiu Wen opened the door and smelled the aroma of the bowl of bone soup noodles, he shouted excitedly. Many members of the team who were originally nervous about the game the day after tomorrow also felt much more relaxed after eating this bowl of heart-warming and stomach-warming bone soup noodles.

That night, many people who were staying up late and browsing the Internet saw that almost every member of the track and field team's relay team who was heading to Yokohama, Japan, posted a picture of themselves holding a bowl of bone soup noodles, and they happily @ed Su Bai to thank Coach Su for the noodles.

? ? ?

The strolling bystanders were shocked: No, why are they always struck by delicious food when they read news about athletes in the middle of the night?

Nowadays, even when reading athletes’ Weibo posts, do we have to be careful not to be attacked by food?

Oh my, look at the noodles in the photos of these contestants. Although they look like ordinary noodles, but in the middle of the night, the aroma and warmth of this mouthful of noodles are actually the most touching.

...It really makes people want to eat it!

Domestic, Track and Field Base Athletes Dormitory

Cui Luoheng had just finished his rest when he saw Wang Shen smilingly forwarding a series of midnight snack Weibo messages to him. He had just closed these messages, and before he could say anything, he saw that in the small group of the midnight snack trio, Qiu Wen was already shouting and posting photos of bone soup noodles, and happily exclaiming that Xiaoye from Xiaobai was so beautiful.

Qiu Wen: [Ahhh, Xiaobai is the best, Xiaobai’s bone soup noodles are the best in the world! 】

Wang Shen: [^^]

Cui Luoheng: [……]

=_=+, I want to hit someone, how can I do it without being discovered by Xiaobai? Waiting online, very anxious.