Chapter 4 Quan Jin's First Meeting with "Mom"...
Heilongjiang Province was already covered in ice and snow by the end of the year. As soon as the master and apprentice stepped out of the hotel, they were shivered by the cold wind and instinctively wrapped their down jackets tighter before heading to the competition venue.
Before the competition, athletes will go to the organizers to draw lots to form groups, and then go to the competition venue in batches for group practice.
In this National Championships, the women's singles event is divided into four groups according to the order of appearance. Yang Yiyan was drawn as the third player in the second group yesterday, which is considered a middle position.
When she saw the lottery results, Xia Yuezi suppressed the smirk that was about to appear on her face.
Although the National Championships are scored by domestic referees who are less harsh, a player's position in the field can still influence the referees' scoring criteria to some extent.
When Xia Yuezi led Yang Yiyan into the arena, the contestants who had already started warming up couldn't help but look at them with scrutinizing eyes.
Last month at the National Junior Championships, Yang Yiyan emerged as a dark horse, surprisingly winning the Group A gold medal with a score of nearly 120 points. This score would have placed her in the top seven at last year's National Championships, not to mention she had four fewer pairings.
An athlete's treatment and opportunities are determined by their performance. If they fail to achieve certain results in international competitions, the National Championships are their last chance.
Although the athletes from different provinces usually get along very well, it doesn't mean they want to have a strong competitor at this time.
The person at the center of the conversation paid them no heed. Xia Yuezi took out ice skates and handed them to Yang Yiyan, advising her based on her past experience: "The ice rinks in Heilongjiang are a bit harder than those in Beijing. Get used to it and be careful."
Yang Yiyan responded, quickly tied her shoelaces, stepped onto the ice, stepped on the ice, and then avoided the other skaters' tracks, performing a 3S jump.
Xia Yuezi watched Yang Yiyan stare at her feet for a second after landing on the ice, then frowned slightly and continued training.
At that moment, a gasp suddenly rang out from the ice rink as Jiang Shuyu successfully landed on the ice.
She put her hands on her hips and slid to the railing, where Wang Can was standing.
Xia Yuezi raised her eyebrows slightly. She remembered that the champion of this National Championships seemed to be this second-best player in the adult group.
In terms of sheer difficulty on paper, Jiang Shuyu and Lu Ying are evenly matched, and Jiang Shuyu has even greater talent. However, this second sister doesn't particularly like figure skating; she has a sport she prefers.
This also resulted in her having solid technique, but her performance was really not impressive, leading ice skating fans to jokingly call it a "clocking-in-to-work performance."
Jiang Shuyu took a sip of water, leaned against the railing to fix her hair, and Wang Can said in a low voice, "Meng Yi and Lu Ying didn't come this year, so make the most of this opportunity."
Jiang Shuyu gently shook her head, making sure her high ponytail wouldn't fall apart, and said in a flat tone without even glancing at him, "I know."
Wang Can was speechless, unable to understand why Jiang Shuyu, who had progressed smoothly through puberty and whose movements were clean and crisp, and who, at seventeen, had no major injuries, was practically a chosen figure skater.
Wang Can had mixed feelings. When he turned his head, he saw Yang Yiyan jump out of 3lo+2lo, and he felt even more upset.
Originally, the idea of handing Yang Yiyan over to Xia Yuezi was to discourage her and make the head coach gradually lose faith in her, but now things are going in the wrong direction.
He glanced at Yang Yiyan's still thin legs, suppressing the gloom in his eyes.
For women, the developmental stage is like opening a blind box; you never know what tomorrow will bring.
Thinking of Zhang Mengyi, who was still in the hospital, he scoffed. He didn't believe Xia Yuezi could help Yang Yiyan get through puberty smoothly.
The women's singles event of the National Championships started at 10:00 a.m. the next day.
As the head coach of the Heilongjiang provincial team, Song Qiao arrived at the stands early in the morning to overlook the entire ice rink. Next to him sat a middle-aged woman. If you ignored the fine lines on her face, you would find that she looked somewhat similar to Xia Yuezi.
"Dr. Yu, look at that girl in the yellow dress on the ice, that's Xiaoyan."
He pointed towards the ice rink, and Yu Qian immediately looked up. A girl with her hair in a bun and wearing a yellow backless katana was taking off her scabbard at the entrance and handing it to her coach.
Looking at the person next to Yang Yiyan, Yu Qian's eyes softened: "This girl only cares about her students, she doesn't even come to see her mother."
The Heilongjiang team was the last team to arrive at the competition venue. Yu Qian originally wanted to go find Xia Yuezi as soon as she arrived at the hotel, but she thought that Xia Yuezi must be very tired after coming all the way from Beijing with her students, and she was afraid that it would affect their performance. So she waited until the competition started before she dared to come and see her.
Seemingly sensing the gaze above her, Xia Yuezi looked up and froze in place. Song Qiao and Yu Qian attributed this expression to being too shocked to see her family.
The sounds of ice skates colliding and scraping against the ice kept ringing in her ears. Xia Yuezi snapped out of her daze, forced a stiff smile, and only dared to turn her gaze back to the ice rink when she saw Yu Qian smiling and waving.
Xia Yuezi was completely unprepared for this scenario, and she could only desperately search through the original owner's memories for everything related to her family.
"She's lost weight. I'll have to give her a good boost after the competition." Yu Qian couldn't help but glance down a few more times, unable to suppress the smile on her lips.
Song Qiao looked at the ice rink with a gentle gaze, watching the women's singles players on the ice, and felt as if he had returned to the time when he was young and led his team to competitions.
"When Xia first came, she was just as thin and small as Xiao Yan. She was extremely nervous the first time she came to Quan Jin."
Yu Qian seemed to recall this incident as well, and her smile widened: "Yes, she fell so hard on the ice that she was completely disoriented. She cried so hard in the dressing room that she ruined her makeup. Who would have thought that one day she would be able to represent the country in a competition?"
“Look at that kid, her mindset is completely different from her coach’s.”
As a first-time participant in the National Championships, Yang Yiyan showed no stage fright, jumping one after another on the ice, causing Xia Yuezi, who had finally managed to calm down, to experience a surge in blood pressure.
Before her free skate tomorrow, I must remind this little girl to conserve her energy during practice six.
After the sixth practice session, the first contestant to go on stage remained on the field, while the other contestants left to wait.
Ten minutes later, when Yang Yiyan took the stage, sparse applause rang out from the stands.
Figure skating is not very popular in China, and it is common for competition tickets to go unsold. Those who come to watch the competition are not necessarily figure skating fans; they may be partners giving internal tickets to their employees as a benefit.
The lukewarm reception from the audience did not dampen the commentator's enthusiasm. A general introduction of the players was given during the sixth practice session, and then again for each individual match.
"Next up is Yang Yiyan from the Beijing team. She is twelve years old this year. This is her first time participating in the National Championships, and she is also the champion of Group A in this year's National Junior Championships."
Looking at the list of participants, the commentator continued, "So far, her best short program score is 43.36 points, which she achieved last month in the Junior A division."
Yang Yiyan pounded her thigh muscles, then walked to the center of the ice rink, and the commentator stopped talking. She glanced at the ice beneath her feet, then knelt down to prepare for her move.
Xia Yuezi held her coat in one hand and gripped the knife sheath tightly in the other, her neck swaying along with the girl's slide on the field.
The first move is 2A, where you lift your free leg high when landing and fully extend your body while maintaining skating speed.
Standing on the stands, Song Qiao took in everything: "This girl has a good posture and good speed, but her height and distance are a bit lacking."
Having worked as a physical therapist for so many years, Yu Qian has a certain sensitivity to certain data about athletes. She hurriedly took two steps forward and asked, "Can this condition be maintained?"
"It's hard to say. If the gosling has a small frame and develops slowly, it's not impossible for it to go far even at low altitudes and high speeds."
He watched as Yang Yiyan completed a set of foot-changing combined rotations and a set of consecutive steps at high speed, and was rated as level three and level four respectively.
As the music gradually reached its climax, the performance entered its second half. Yang Yiyan, stepping precisely to the beat, completed the 2lo+2lo sequence with crisp precision.
According to the rules of the International Skating Union, jumps in the second half of a program can earn 1.1 times the base score, but there is no specific requirement for the number of jumps.
Given Yang Yiyan's current physical condition, she cannot balance difficulty and bonus points. Therefore, she can only try to steal as many points as possible from the judges while maintaining her physical condition.
Yang Yiyan raised her left leg and spread her arms wide, gliding past the judges' table in a swallow-like skating style. She then glided to gather momentum, touched the ice with her left foot, and landed on a 3T.
After completing the three sets of jumps, Xia Yuezi was completely relieved, and she couldn't stop smiling.
Yang Yiyan put her hands behind her back, raised her right leg and entered the last set of spins in a windmill shape. Her upper body leaned slightly towards her right leg, her right hand grabbed the ice blade of her right leg and lifted it up. Then she lifted the ice blade with both hands, and her upper body was almost parallel to the ice surface.
Generally speaking, eight rotations are enough for a change of posture, but the judges only start counting after the posture is correct. To prevent Yang Yiyan from not being upright enough when changing posture, Xia Yuezi arranged for ten rotations of the backbend turn.
The girl on the ice spun faster and faster, eventually pulling her skate over her head to create a Biellmann spin.
When the music ended, the girl released her skates, opened her arms and stretched them out to thank all the audience.
Enthusiastic applause erupted from the stands, and dolls were thrown onto the ice rink by spectators.
Yang Yiyan picked up the dolls one by one, her excitement barely concealed. When she arrived at the waiting area, she held a doll in one hand and used a towel to wipe her sweat in the other.
Xia Yuezi looked down at her, her eyes shining just like her own apprentice's: "You did well in your first National Championships. You're even better than the coach."
Yang Yiyan's eyes shone even brighter: "Really?"
"Of course it's true."
Xia Yuezi put her hand on Yang Yiyan's shoulder and pulled her into her arms.
After these few competitions, she realized that once this girl gained confidence, her mentality and skills would also stabilize.
She only praised Yang Yiyan a few times after the National Youth Championships, but Yang Yiyan was full of fighting spirit and managed to master the 3lo+2lo before the National Championships. She even declared that she would learn all five types of triple jumps before the next season.
Thinking back to the first time she met her, Xia Yuezi felt a little sad. She wondered how badly she had been suppressed in Wang Can's group, and how timid she was when she spoke.
The master and apprentice chatted for a while before the broadcast started. When Yang Yiyan saw the results on the big screen, her eyes widened.
With a technical score of 26.91, a program content score of 23.35, and a total score of 50.26, he is currently ranked first.
The judges weren't lenient with their scores, but this result was enough for Yang Yiyan to squeeze into the last group of the free skate.
Yang Yiyan pulled away from Xia Yuezi's hand and rushed into her arms, so happy that she forgot where she was.
Xia Yuezi couldn't stand it anymore, so she patted her on the head and whispered, "Your mouth is practically agape. There are so many cameras around, watch your image."
The moment the words left his mouth, his arms fell silent.
Then, the photographers saw the athlete who had broken the 50 mark leave behind his coach, avoiding people along the way, as if he wanted to bury his head in the ground like an ostrich.
At the other end of the ice rink, Wang Can's face was expressionless, but his hand holding the thermos kept tightening, and the veins on the back of his hand bulged.
He glanced at Jiang Shuyu, who had already changed into her thermos and was warming up, then quietly put the thermos back in his bag and turned back to sit down next to her.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
