"No... Coach Su, how are you going to make them face reality?"
Su Bai's answer just now made Pei Jinan's heart skip a beat and he felt a little panicked.
Seeing Pei Jinan's nervous look, Su Bai said calmly, "It's nothing. Just let them know what level I am at now."
After a pause, Su Bai said to Pei Jinan: "If it is convenient, I would like to ask the national team to help arrange an overseas match for several key 400-meter athletes, or invite European and American athletes to come to China for a simple team practice match."
After hearing what Su Bai said, Pei Jinan finally understood completely - Su Bai was trying to give the 400-meter runners in the team a warning!
He frowned and said to Su Bai, "Coach Su, I understand that you are new here and may be worried about the athletes' lack of cooperation in training. However, as coaches, we must not only consider the athletes' training, but also their psychological conditions. The current situation is that the Asian Games competition cycle is from August 23 to September 1. Today is July 18. The athletes for training will be in place within 3 days. Excluding the relaxation and adaptation time before the game, we only have less than 40 days of training time at most."
"We need to ensure that the athletes' training is effective during this period, and we also need to ensure their confidence in the competition. If we now let the athletes compete against European and American 400-meter athletes in practice matches, it will probably seriously undermine the athletes' confidence in the competition, which will be very disadvantageous to the Asian Games..."
From Pei Jinan's reaction, it can be clearly seen that he did not agree with Su Bai's plan, but because Su Bai was a new coach, he left some wiggle room for Su Bai and did not directly oppose or criticize.
In fact, before Su Bai made this request, he had already prepared for this kind of feedback. After Pei Jinan refused, Su Bai also explained the reason why he made this request.
In fact, when Su Bai and Qiu Wen participated in the 400m Grand Prix for the first time, they had already noticed the current situation of the 400m event. And after Su Bai watched the preliminaries and finals of the 400m event in the trials these two days, this feeling became even clearer - the current domestic competition environment is too tolerant of the 400m event.
The reason for such a tolerant environment is very simple, because the domestic 400-meter event is very weak, so weak that if there is any improvement or growth, track and field fans will give the athletes the most enthusiastic response.
This situation is actually a good thing, because with the tolerance and encouragement of track and field fans, athletes will not be subjected to various life attacks and contemptuous remarks that they should not bear in a high-pressure environment.
But from another perspective, athletes who grow up in such a warm public opinion environment will be more lazy and easily satisfied.
Because as long as they achieve certain results and make certain progress, they will receive countless praises.
In fact, the 100m and 200m in the early years also had a similar environment, but these two events, especially the 100m, have always been the most valued events in domestic track and field events. Therefore, the Athletics Management Center will bear the pressure from the General Administration of Sports, and the Athletics Management Center will also pass this pressure down to each track and field team, allowing the track and field teams to increase their efforts in training athletes.
It can be said that in order to achieve a breakthrough in the 100-meter event, the entire domestic sports system has been under a certain sense of pressure. In this environment, every second of progress will certainly be praised, but at the same time, the burden on everyone's shoulders is still very heavy, and they will not become happy and complacent just because they have achieved a small result.
The 400-meter event is different. Of course, China has also invested a lot in the 400-meter event. However, due to the high overall technical difficulty of the 400-meter event, for China, although it is known that the 400-meter event has some principles in training, how to apply these principles and how to cultivate 400-meter athletes who are at least first-class Asian level... These are difficult problems to solve in China.
Over time, the Athletics Management Center conceded that the 400-meter event was a tough nut to crack, and decided to tackle the 100-meter and 200-meter events first, and then continue to study the mature training experience they had already mastered and apply it to the 400-meter event.
This means that the Athletics Administration Center and the General Administration of Sport can "understand" the fact that there are no results in the 400m event, as the event itself lacks pressure from the top.
Not only that, in the 400-meter event, the athletes themselves will subconsciously feel that the domestic 400-meter technology is not as good as that of foreign countries. In this case, although the domestic 400-meter athletes will not mention it in their performance, they have already accepted the reality that they are "weaker" in their inner consciousness. Perhaps even they themselves have not thought about it, and they admit this reality. If someone mentions this topic to them, they may still jump up and down and spray back.
And what about the track and field fans at home?
Originally, there were not many fans of track and field, and the fans who really liked this sport all knew that track and field training was hard and required talent. They were also very good at various archaeology and research on various domestic and foreign sports news and scientific research results. In this case, although track and field fans were heartbroken about the original difference in domestic and foreign results, they were still very tolerant of athletes.
There is no task pressure from professional management, no pressure from fans, and the athletes themselves tend to escape from reality.
A combination of various internal and external factors has led to the rather embarrassing situation of the current domestic 400m event - everyone thinks that the athletes have tried hard and that it is limited by their talents and coaching plans, but in actual competitions, people often see athletes paddling, and while paddling they will make excuses for them, saying that it is because they know they cannot run very good results, so their competitive state is very "tired".
Since Su Bai started to take over Qiu Wen's 400-meter training, he also went through several competitions and watched many domestic 400-meter event videos before gradually confirming this situation.
At present, Qiu Wen has not been affected by this environment, but Zhang Wei and Hu Li were also considered "victims" of this environment before.
Before coming to the national team, Su Bai also took a brief look at the information of Zhang Ziyi, Guo Dun, and Li Junhao, another player from the B city team who was squeezed out of the selection competition by Hu Li and Zhang Wei. From these players, Su Bai has more or less seen the laziness they have developed under the influence of the distorted domestic 400-meter environment.
Without mentioning the distant past, let's just talk about Li Junhao from the B City Team. This player from the B City Team is quite talented. He is only 23 years old today, but in the 2016 outdoor season, he ran a time of 46.89 seconds. He was an athlete who achieved results very early. However, in this year's outdoor season, he has not been able to run under 47.50 seconds in every competition. Originally, his results were almost stuck at the bottom of the rankings for entering the Grand Prix Finals. As a result, three people, Qiu Wen, Hu Li, and Zhang Wei, suddenly emerged in the Grand Prix this year. Under the impact of these three people, Li Junhao's qualification for the finals was directly washed away.
There was a lot of discussion on the Internet before this incident, and many people believed that the feud between the B City Team and the S Province Track and Field Team had become serious this time.
However, some track and field fans are very aware that this result is purely due to the fact that Li Junhao himself did not perform well in the Grand Prix races of the year.
As for the reason for doing nothing?
"So, why did Li Junhao do nothing?"
After Su Bai finished saying the above series of things, he asked Pei Jinan very directly. After Su Bai asked this question, Pei Jinan did not answer for a long time. He leaned back in his office chair and sighed deeply.
"……you're right."
Pei Jinan did not answer the question raised by Su Bai, but directly agreed with Su Bai's point of view.
From the coaches' perspective, they have always felt that the country's 400-meter training capacity is insufficient, and as for the athletes, although they are very strict in training, they are also very caring and protective in terms of their lives and mental health.
Not only that, the national team is mainly responsible for participating in international competitions, so it is necessary to focus on the athletes' competitive status and mental health.
Due to various reasons, they are unwilling to directly subject athletes to frustration education, as this may result in the athletes being unable to perform to their full potential in official competitions.
"I was mistaken, Coach Su, you are right, it's time for them to face reality!"
Pei Jinan nodded solemnly.
When he nodded, he agreed with Su Bai's approach, which was to throw the players who were originally in a greenhouse environment into the real environment, let them see their own strength, and then adjust their confrontational mentality and further training plans.
Such practices may, of course, cause psychological setbacks to athletes, and some may even become devastated, but it is not too late to mend the situation.
After making up his mind, Pei Jinan glanced at Su Bai again, smiled bitterly and shook his head, saying, "Coach Su, although you are young, you are more ruthless than us old men! We have more or less noticed this problem before, but we had too many concerns in our hearts, so we couldn't be as straightforward as you."
"Don't worry. If this decision has any subsequent impact on future competitions, I will shoulder the responsibility with you. Even if the players' competitive state is affected by this practice match stimulus plan, as long as this competition can help them go further in their future sports career, it will be worth it!"
Seeing Pei Jinan's full support for him, Su Bai breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing that Pei Jinan seemed to be supporting him with the determination to cut off his arm, Su Bai thought about it and comforted him: "Coach Pei, don't worry, although there will be some excitement, the final results of the contestants may not be affected too much."
When Pei Jinan heard Su Bai's words, he thought he was probably comforting himself, so he smiled and waved his hands: "Okay, it's okay, since we have decided to hand over the 400-meter event to you during this training camp, then just do it boldly!"
After saying that, Pei Jinan himself laughed. The reason why Su Bai was initially summoned to the national team was of course to enable the players to achieve good results in the competition. However, after the conversation just now, Pei Jinan put the results behind him for the time being. He felt that it was also a good thing to allow the players to adjust their mental state and make progress in their long-term development.
After thinking for a while, Pei Jinan said, "It's still the outdoor season stage, and most of the athletes are still running various competitions. The Asian Games are coming soon, and it's not appropriate to find Asian athletes. Let me ask the team leader to contact a few athletes whose best results last season were around 50th in the world. Come to our team within a week and exchange ideas with our 400m athletes."
When Su Bai heard this, he nodded seriously in agreement.
Ranking 50th in the world doesn’t sound like a particularly high ranking, so it’s hard for the players to be particularly vigilant. As for their actual personal strength…
Thinking of this, Su Bai also felt that Pei Jinan's arrangement was very appropriate.
At this time, the members of the 400-meter training camp who had not yet reported to the national team's track and field training base all felt a chill to varying degrees - they felt as if the hairs on their backs suddenly stood up. What was going on?
After solving the "real needs" of the 400-meter event, Su Bai also went to the hurdles group and had a brief communication with the head coach of the hurdles group, Lu Shengbin. Lu Shengbin has always been Lu Mengfan's head coach. After Su Bai brought out a monster newcomer like Cui Luoheng, Lu Shengbin really wanted Su Bai to go directly to the hurdles group, but after he learned about the 400-meter event, he also knew that this request was not very realistic.
As a second best option, Lu Shengbin was worried that he didn't understand Cui Luoheng's situation, so he told Su Bai that he would still be responsible for Cui Luoheng.
As for what Lu Shengbin was originally struggling with, it was mainly about whether to let Su Bai come to study Lu Mengfan's training plan together. However, after repeated consideration, he decided to let Su Bai be only responsible for Cui Luoheng for the time being.
As for the 110-meter hurdles, Su Bai does not have any special plans. In the next month or so, his overall training for Cui Luoheng will still focus on attention control. In addition, he will adjust some technical details and maintain training in strength and reaction speed.
After clarifying the distribution of training work with Lu Shengbin, Su Bai returned to his dormitory, sat on the small sofa and breathed a sigh of relief.
Here in the national team, there is a brand new environment and brand new co-workers. Fortunately, it seems that everyone is still a pure sports person and there shouldn’t be any big problems getting along with each other at work.
After a short rest, Su Bai opened the laptop he brought with him and began to make a rough training plan and goal planning.
The summer noon sun shines into the room, appearing exceptionally bright and even a little dazzling.
Su Bai raised his hand and rubbed his eyes slightly. When he took his hand back, he looked at the back of his hand and frowned. He didn't know if it was his illusion, but he always felt that his skin had become whiter and whiter during this period of time...
He used to be the type of athlete who never gets tanned, but now, at first glance, there is no trace of pores on his arms.
Could it be that because he changed from an athlete to a coach, he never got tanned to begin with, and now he's become even whiter?
Su Bai scratched his head, put this boring idea behind him, and then focused his attention on the document in front of him.
The next day, the list of the national track and field team's training coaching staff was officially announced, and the first general mobilization meeting of the national team coaching staff was also held at the same time.
During the meeting, Jiang Wentao, deputy director of the competition group of the Athletics Administration Center, presided over the meeting and emphasized the usual mental requirements such as hard work and refusal to take doping. He also directly issued the task requirements for each event of the Jakarta Asian Games to the coaching team.
Perhaps Pei Jinan had already communicated directly with the Athletics Management Center the day before. When mentioning the men's 400m event, Jiang Wentao briefly mentioned the tasks of the event and only asked the athletes to "give their all and perform at their best."
At the same time, Jiang Wentao also hinted that [for the long-term development of the athletes, there will be planning to allow for the strategic abandonment of the results of one or two games].
Hearing this, Su Bai understood that this must be the case that the Field Management Center also agreed to his plan and gave him enough autonomy.
After the meeting, Jiang Wentao left Su Bai alone again and told him that the Field Management Center had received feedback from Pei Jinan and agreed to Su Bai's request. However, since there were plans and programs, there must be corresponding goals to verify the effectiveness of the implementation of the entire plan.
The Athletics Administration Center does not require Su Bai to give feedback on the effectiveness of his training by the end of the Asian Games 400m event, but hopes that Su Bai can provide periodic verification of the effectiveness of his training by the end of September at the National Track and Field Championships.
Su Bai was slightly stunned: "But doesn't the training period only last until before the Asian Games?"
Jiang Wentao shook his head: "The training before the Asian Games is only the first stage. This training will be directly connected with the national team's winter training this year after selecting some players based on the actual results."
"Although it is only late July now, it is already the middle and late stages of the outdoor season. Next year will be 2019, and the Asian Championships and World Championships are just around the corner. There is also the task of meeting the standards for the Olympic events in the next 20 years..."
At this point, Jiang Wentao's face was serious: "Coach Su, this time, the Athletics Management Center and the national team transferred you to the national team to be in charge of the men's 400m event. Considering your age and coaching qualifications, this is unprecedented. The support for your proposal this time is also unprecedented. The 400m event is indeed one of the pain points in domestic track events. We all hope that you can achieve results that will excite everyone in this event!"
"But you should also understand that if your performance fails to meet expectations, the Athletics Administration and the national team will re-evaluate you."
"Everything is for the better performance and glory of the athletes. I hope you understand this."
Jiang Wentao's words also clearly explained to Su Bai all the interests involved - the Athletics Management Center and the national team supported Su Bai to do this practice match, but Su Bai's practice match stimulation and subsequent training must have sufficient performance feedback, otherwise, facing the pressure of the next two "big years of track and field competitions", the national team will inevitably choose other coaches with existing results and more persuasiveness to take over.
Su Bai looked at Jiang Wentao and stared into his eyes with the same seriousness: "Don't worry, Director Jiang, I understand what you mean. I will give the corresponding standards for the effect verification plan after meeting the athletes and testing them."
"Okay." Jiang Wentao laughed: "Then I'll wait for your good news, Coach Su!"
At this point, the Athletics Management Center, the national team's sprint group and Su Bai have reached a complete consensus, and Su Bai has also gained the greatest autonomy, allowing him to make a series of training plans for the team members who are about to come to train under him.
There are a total of 7 athletes who are about to join Su Bai's 400m training. Among them, the traditional strong team in the 400m event, Team B City, has come with both people and coaches. They are Wang Ting, the head coach of the 400m event of Team B City, who came to the national team as Su Bai's deputy, and his three team members Zhang Ziyi, Guo Dun and Li Junhao, in addition, there are Lin Chuan from the Z Province Track and Field Team, Zhou Xu from the G Province Track and Field Team, Zhang Chang from the F Province Track and Field Team, and finally Qiu Wen from the S Province Track and Field Team.
Among these six people, Zhang Ziyi and Qiu Wen will be contestants in the men's 400m sprint event, while Zhang Ziyi, Guo Dun, Li Junhao, Lin Chuan, Zhou Xu and Zhang Chang are all members of the men's 4*400m relay team. Among them, Li Junhao, Zhou Xu and Zhang Chang take turns as substitutes, and only Zhang Ziyi, Guo Dun and Lin Chuan are long-term regular members of the relay team.
All the relevant information of these players has been handed to Su Bai, but in addition to these superficial information, Su Bai also wants to know more details, so he thought about it and called Sun Xiangdong, asking him to help him contact the nutritionist of the national team and the chef in the kitchen...
On July 20, all athletes participating in the national team training for the Asian Games in Jakarta had reported to the training base. Su Bai also met his teammates and deputy head coach Wang Ting.
When meeting the team members, Su Bai ignored Qiu Wen who kept winking at him, and said to everyone in unison: "In order to understand everyone's strength, I have invited some 400m athletes ranked 50-100 in the world to have a practice match with everyone in two days."
"Don't be nervous, adjust your condition as quickly as possible in the next two days."
After a pause, Su Bai said very friendly: "To welcome everyone, I will cook a welcome dinner for everyone today. Everyone, please meet on the third floor of the cafeteria at 6 o'clock in the evening."
?
? ? ?
The athletes present, except Qiu Wen, were originally prepared to listen to the coach's lecture, but the coach turned out to be quite easy to talk to!
Not only is he easy to talk to, but he also said he would hold a welcoming banquet for them?
Where have the athletes present seen such a scene before? After all, their previous coaches were rough guys who couldn't cook.
But they were also a little confused: this coach looked clean, kind, and so young... Was he really the awesome coach who brought up Qiu Wen?
Everyone turned their gaze towards Qiu Wen, only to see this boy with shining eyes.
"Xiao Bai...ah no, coach, can Ah Heng and Wang Shen join us for dinner tonight?"
Su Bai glanced at the athletes who were unaware of the danger of the upcoming 'practice match', then glanced at Qiu Wen who was even more naive, and nodded very kindly: "Okay."
The athletes present didn't know why, but when they heard Su Bai's "yes", they felt a chill all over their bodies...
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