Chapter 20
If we were to choose the darkest moment in Zhang Ping's life, this moment would definitely be voted the winner.
Zhang Ping, a member of the junior team of Province J, never imagined that he would be caught complaining about the summer camp students at the track and field base of Province S by the other side.
At this moment, even his teammates looked uncomfortable.
But after a moment of discomfort, Zhang Ping still said, "What's wrong? Is it wrong to say that you are wildcard players?"
Zhou Yuang was just about to say something more when he caught a glimpse of the guy opposite him who looked uncomfortable. He turned his head and saw that it was Su Yu who was looking at him. He didn't say anything but just stared at him with a puzzled look, and stared at him until the guy opposite him almost couldn't stand still.
After a while, Su Yu said calmly, "You are right."
Zhang Ping: “…”
That’s right, why have you been staring at me for so long? ! !
But before Zhang Ping could finish his complaint, Su Yu said, "There are 69 runners in the men's 100m race, and only the top 8 will advance to the finals."
At this point, Su Yu paused and looked at Zhang Ping opposite him: "Is your score sure to be in the top 8?"
Zhou Yuang: “Puff.”
Jiang Yuan also had a faint smile on his face - their Xiaoyu has never been someone who is willing to suffer losses since he was a child.
Zhang Ping, who was standing opposite the three people, instantly turned red in the face.
A sure shot in the top 8?
Among those who came to participate in the base competition this time, except Ye Minghao from Province G and his teammate Jiang Ruohui, how many people dare to pat their chests and say that they can definitely enter the finals?
At least Zhang Ping can't.
Being caught and muttered to his face by the summer camp wildcards, and being blasted by them, Zhang Ping couldn't hold back. He gritted his teeth and said, "Why do you care if I make it to the finals? You can't even run 11 seconds, right? So what if you're just wildcards? Even if I can't make it to the finals, I'll still be able to beat you!"
Zhou Yuang touched his chin when he heard this and said, "Actually, I'm quite curious, who told you that we can't run under 11 seconds?"
Zhang Ping on the other side said unhappily: "Of course it was the people from the S Province team who told us." At this point, he pointed in a direction not far away: "It's him, Fang Linsen."
"Fang Linsen? Who is that?"
Zhou Yuang was puzzled for a moment, but when he turned around, he saw a familiar figure, and immediately realized: "So it's you..."
It was the nameless cannon fodder who had stopped their little ancestor before.
Fang Linsen didn't expect that Zhang Ping would point out his dissatisfaction with Su Yu and Zhou Yuang by name. His face was not very good at the moment, but Zhang Ping still said to him: "Fang Linsen, you said before that the wildcard players in your provincial team's summer camp can't even run 11 seconds, right?"
Fang Linsen was also silent at this moment.
It was true what he said to Zhang Ping before, but at that time the final results of Su Yu and Zhou Yuang had not come out yet, so what he said was not wrong.
Su Yu also turned around and looked at Fang Linsen mentioned by Zhang Ping. After seeing that it was the junior player from the provincial team who had inexplicably stopped him before, he understood what the rumors Zhang Ping had heard were about.
After understanding this, Su Yu lost interest in the situation before him. After looking at Zhang Ping who had not yet figured out the situation, he turned and left.
Jiang Yuan of course walked away with Su Yu. As for Zhou Yuang, he was probably the only one who was willing to pay attention to Zhang Ping for a while. He smiled brightly and said in a very 'friendly' way: "Zhang Ping, right? See you in the preliminaries later."
It was not until Su Yu, Zhou Yuang, and Jiang Yuan left that Zhang Ping whispered to Fang Linsen, "Hey, Fang Linsen, what's wrong with you? You're not talking anymore?"
Fang Linsen was silent for a moment and still said nothing.
Zhang Ping asked, "Didn't you say that the wildcards from your provincial team didn't do very well? What was the third place result in the qualifying round that day?"
Fang Linsen paused: "12.38 seconds."
Hearing this result, Zhang Ping breathed a sigh of relief, then said angrily: "This result is not very good! Among the three of them, the weakest one in the middle is the one with 12.38 seconds, right?"
When Fang Linsen heard Zhang Ping's question, he shook his head with a complicated expression: "No."
Zhang Ping was stunned for a moment: "What is his score?"
Fang Linsen: "...11.67 seconds, the wind speed is acceptable. The one with darker skin next to him was the runner-up in the qualifying finals, with a time of 11.68 seconds."
Hearing this, Zhang Ping's face turned green.
11.67 and 11.68, although these results are not the top in today's base competition, they are definitely in the upper middle level. At least he himself may not be able to run this result in every game, let alone Fang Linsen - Fang Linsen's personal best so far is still 11.71, which barely meets the standard for the second grade in the country.
Thinking of this, Zhang Ping asked with an unpleasant expression: "What about the other one? What project is he in?"
Fang Linsen: “…”
Fang Linsen: "He competed in both high jump and long jump. In yesterday's competition, he jumped 2 meters in the high jump and 7.33 meters in the long jump, ranking first by a large margin."
Zhang Ping was completely helpless at this moment. They themselves were athletes who studied track and field, so of course they knew what these two results meant. If Su Yu and Zhou Yuang's 11.67 and 11.68 were only in the upper middle range in today's base competition, then Jiang Yuan's result would be enough to win the championship!
He looked at Fang Linsen with an unpleasant expression: "Mr. Fang, you are playing me?!"
Fang Linsen: “…”
***
Although today's National Track and Field U16 Base Competition is not open to the public, the overall competition process has been established and is very formal.
Su Yu and Zhou Yuang first went to the men's 100-meter registration office under the guidance of the staff to complete the registration, and then the staff distributed grouping instructions and competition plates to them.
Coincidentally, they also met a familiar face at the registration office - it was Ye Minghao who had specifically visited Su Yu after the preliminaries two days ago.
"Su Yu, we meet again!"
Ye Minghao greeted Su Yu with a smile, then glanced at Su Yu's number plate and said with a hint of regret: "What a pity, we are not in the same group in the preliminaries."
Su Yu glanced at him, too lazy to pay attention to him, turned around and went to the warm-up area.
After Su Yu and Zhou Yuang left, another young man next to Ye Minghao asked him, "Hey, Ye Zi, is this the Su Yu you mentioned?"
Ye Minghao smiled and nodded: "Yes."
"Does it really have potential? It doesn't look like it."
Ye Minghao glanced at his teammates and said with a smile: "Jiang Ruohui, what do you want to say?"
The boy next to him laughed and patted him on the shoulder: "What did I want to say? I wanted to say, Ye Zi, don't let lust blind you!"
Ye Minghao was speechless for two seconds after hearing this, and finally slapped Jiang Ruohui's hand away and said, "I'm not kidding you, I did feel the aura of the natural enemy from this Su Yu, don't you still believe my intuition?"
Jiang Ruohui raised his eyebrows and asked, "Do you really have this intuition?"
Ye Minghao glanced at him and said, "If you don't believe my intuition, then do you believe the data? I went to ask a friend of mine from the S Province Sports Team yesterday. This Su Yu's reaction time at the start of the qualifying final was 0.127 seconds."
Only after hearing this data did Jiang Ruohui become serious: "Didn't you say that when you saw him in the preliminaries that day, his reaction time was 0.142?"
Ye Minghao regained his smiling face: "Yes, but the final is 0.127."
Jiang Ruohui hissed immediately: "It's so terrifying!"
Even among the junior group of their Province G, including Ye Minghao, no one could maintain such an excellent starting reaction speed.
After hesitating for a while, Jiang Ruohui still asked, "Is it really not a matter of luck?"
Ye Minghao glanced at him and said with a smile, "You'll know after watching the game later, right?"
***
On-site, the coaches' rest area of each team
The team did not assign Pei Dingshan any tasks such as refereeing for today's game, but instead asked him to stay in the coaches' lounge and communicate with coaches from other provincial teams.
It is called an exchange, but in fact it is the selfishness of the S Province Sports Team, to show off to the coaching staffs of other provincial teams - look, Pei Dingshan, who you all fought for, chose our team.
Pei Dingshan had no objection to this arrangement of the team. At this time, he was sitting in the rest area and having brief communication with the coaches of other provincial teams.
"I heard that you, Coach Pei, spotted two good players in the summer camp of the S Province Sports Team?"
Pei Dingshan said "hmm" calmly.
"How good is it?"
When Pei Dingshan heard this question, he paused for a rare moment and said, "Very good."
Noticing the curious looks of the coaches around him, Pei Dingshan glanced at their curious looks and suddenly smiled: "Before he turns 16, the national U16 100-meter record will be in his name."
? ! !
The coaches around were more or less polite in their curiosity before, but they really couldn't sit still after hearing these words.
"Who?! Xiao Pei, are you talking about those two good seedlings you've taken a fancy to?"
"I remember your two contestants are called Zhou Yuang and Su Yu, right? So which one are you talking about just now?"
These coaches from various provincial teams and sports schools certainly understand Pei Dingshan's background and know that Pei Dingshan is not a person who speaks without thinking.
Zhao Weiping, the leader of the G Province team, was also stunned. It was only after he left the test match of the S Province Sports Team's summer camp that day that he realized that Zhou Yuang and Su Yu, the top two players in the preliminaries that he saw on the roster, were good seedlings picked by Pei Dingshan himself. Although he slightly regretted what he said at the time, he did not think that Zhou Yuang and Su Yu could really advance to the finals in today's competition.
But now, after hearing Pei Dingshan's prediction, he couldn't help but regret not staying on the scene to see what was so special about these two students.
Thinking of this, he asked tentatively: "Is it that Zhou Yuang?"
Pei Dingshan smiled and said, "Let's watch the game. After watching the game, I think you seniors should be able to have an answer."
***
Today's game was held in the largest standard stadium in the track and field base of the S Province Sports Team. There were seats for spectators on site. At this moment, these seats were occupied by scattered summer camp students who came to watch the game. However, only a hundred or so students could not fill up such a large auditorium.
“From this position, the entire track and field stadium is so huge!”
“Man, it’s so tense watching the game from this position!”
"I wonder what position those big guys from our summer camp will have in today's game?"
"Oh, I heard from others that our summer camp results are nothing compared to those of the provincial junior team players, especially in the sprints. There is a high probability that they will not even make it to the finals."
These students sat in the spectator seats, talking to each other. Some were looking forward to it, some were nervous, and of course, there were also some who simply didn't come to watch the game because they were "not in good shape" - such as Xu Ziqi, who had looked down on Su Yu at the beginning.
As these students chatted, they inevitably talked about Su Yu.
"No matter what, I still think it's so magical that the men's 100-meter champion in the summer camp's final test event will actually be Su Yu."
"Yes, even though you all said that most of our summer camp students won't even make it to the finals, I think there's something magical about Su Yu - who knows?"
While everyone was chatting, the competition had actually already begun.
Among all the individual events, the first to start was the long jump qualifying round. As a "temporary non-staff member" of the S Province Sports Team, Jiang Yuan also completed his warm-up early in the morning and followed the members of the S Province Sports Team to the long jump preparation area to wait for the official trial jump to begin.
If Su Yu and Zhou Yuang were the focus of attention and caution for the junior sprint athletes of the S Province Sports Team in the past month or so, then Jiang Yuan was the nightmare of the long jump and high jump athletes.
These days, the long jump contestants have almost lost their temper due to Jiang Yuan. The question is, who understands? An athlete who had not received much training easily crossed the 7-meter line under Liu Wenjian's guidance.
Old Liu also disliked Jiang Yuan's lack of desire to win, and wanted them to provoke Jiang Yuan.
…
If Lao Liu wasn't a senior coach of the provincial sports team, they would all want to jump up and curse - who was provoking whom? ! With Jiang Yuan's level, use them to stimulate him? You want to use Jiang Yuan to stimulate us!
Now, after more than a month of "training", these players have become very calm in their mentality.
Looking at the contestants from other provincial teams present, the two long jump champions from the youth group of Province S thought to themselves - friends, we have been tempered, and today it is your turn to be tempered!
The athletes from other provincial teams who were also waiting for the trial jump to begin didn't know what was going on. They always felt that the two host athletes from the S Province Sports Team looked at them strangely, but they didn't think too much about it. Under the guidance of the on-site staff, they all stayed in the waiting area, ready to go on stage at any time when the staff called them.
In the coaches' seats in the audience, as the first event of the long jump began, the coaches' attention gradually turned to the direction of the start of the competition.
The first person to take the stage for the first jump was Meng Yun, a young athlete from the G Province Sports Team. This young athlete is quite strong and is considered one of the top players in the long jump group of the G Province Sports Team. His personal best result is 7.18 meters, which is close to the level of national first-class athletes.
The coaches from various provincial teams in the audience saw Meng Yun come on the court and chatted with him for a while.
"Meng Yun's appearance order is a bit too early."
"Yes, the first jump of the whole competition did not even warm up the audience, but after all, it was only the first trial jump, and there are still two more trial jump opportunities. With Meng Yun's strength, it won't be a problem for him to advance to the finals."
As the head coach of Province G, Zhao Weiping has a relatively good understanding of Meng Yun. Although Meng Yun is the first to appear on the court, Zhao Weiping does not feel uneasy about him.
As expected, Meng Yun achieved a good result of 6.86 meters in his first jump (wind speed 0.7 m/s), and the coaches present applauded.
"This Meng Yun is pretty good!"
"I was able to reach 6.86 meters in my first jump. Does that mean I have secured first place in the qualifying round?"
Generally speaking, in the U16 age group, a score of 6.86 meters is acceptable. If this were the final, Meng Yun could even be said to have secured the gold medal in advance.
On the field, Meng Yun was obviously very satisfied with the result of his jump. After getting up from the sand pit, he clenched his fists and waved them with a smile of joy on his face.
Coincidentally, the second person to try out after Meng Yun was Jiang Yuan, who had obtained a "wild card" in the S Province team.
For Jiang Yuan, there was no special goal in training and competition. However, two days ago, after seeing Su Yu sprinting with all his might in the competition, he suddenly felt a different touch towards the competition.
He also wanted to give it a try, to fight for victory more seriously in the game...what would that feel like.
In the preliminary round just now, Meng Yun, who was the first to test jump, clearly raised Jiang Yuan's expectations for this competition - 6.86 meters, a result that had never appeared in previous summer camp student test matches. Even in the daily training of the junior group of the S Province Sports Team, it was a result rarely achieved by other students.
With the thought that "this is worthy of being a national-level base competition", Jiang Yuan raised his hand to signal the referee that he was about to start the first jump.
Then, under the watchful eyes of the referee and with the coaches in the audience watching attentively, he started running from the starting line, taking powerful steps all the way forward at full speed, then stepped hard onto the springboard, his body then carried forward by the power of his hips - after stretching forward with all his strength, he landed steadily in the sand pit.
Only after he stood up did he look back at the traces he had left in the sand pit and the markings on the edge, and nodded slightly.
Well, not bad.
At the same time, the contestant who was about to make the third jump after Jiang Yuan was already stunned. Or rather, except for Jiang Yuan, all the other contestants were already stunned.
“…Fuck, there’s a monster?!”
"Which team is he from? The S Province Sports Team? When did such a monster appear in S Province?"
"He didn't lie about his age, did he? Is he really from the U16 class?"
Not only the players waiting to compete, but even the coaches in the audience were stunned.
"Wait, this contestant, this contestant... a newcomer from Province S?"
Liu Wenjian, who had been silent before, now showed a satisfied smile: "Yes, his name is Jiang Yuan, and he is also the kid I liked in this summer camp."
Other coaches: ...Summer camp, it's summer camp again!
Pei Dingshan picked out two students in the summer camp, and we still don’t know how those two students will perform. And you, Liu Wenjian, picked out such a little monster in the summer camp? !
At this time in the competition field, the referee at the long jump finish line had raised the flag to indicate that Jiang Yuan's jump result was valid. After the measurement, the final result of Jiang Yuan's jump appeared on the electronic screen on the scene - 7.37 meters (wind speed 0.7m/s).
For a moment, not only the athletes who were about to compete in the long jump competition, but even the coaches in the audience were silent. Only Liu Wenjian had a satisfied smile on his face and said seriously, "Not bad, he broke his PB. This kid is in good shape today."
The coaches around were speechless about Liu Wenjian's performance - a 14-year-old kid jumped 7.37 meters in his first attempt, and you just call that 'good shape'?
My friend, that’s not how Versailles works!
Even Zhao Weiping couldn't help but complain about him: "Coach Liu, with a score of 7.37 meters, it's no problem for him to win the U18 national championship."
Liu Wenjian couldn't hold back his expression anymore and laughed, "No, no, it's just a coincidence."
If the coaches in the coaching booth were just complaining about Liu Wenjian's Versailles and thinking to themselves, "Where did S Province get so many good seedlings in this summer camp? Should they do the same next year?", then the players on the field had their mentality completely broken after Jiang Yuan's jump.
7.37 meters!
Just in the first jump, Meng Yun's score of 6.68 meters made them all think that this might be the first place result in the qualifying round, but the second person who came up got 7.37? !
This is not the way to bully people!
Meng Yun, who had just left the stage, was also stunned in shock after seeing Jiang Yuan's result. As for the third contestant?
As the third attempt jumper who suffered the greatest impact, this unlucky athlete from Province J was so shocked that he had not yet recovered from his shock and failed to step onto the taking-off board in his first attempt, so his result was directly declared invalid.
As for the fourth and fifth players, their conditions were not much better than the third player. They only jumped a little over 5 meters but less than 6 meters. Fortunately, at least there was a result, so they did not fail.
In the final men's long jump qualifying round, Jiang Yuan secured his victory with just the first jump. After the first round of trial jumps was over, Jiang Yuan directly gave up his remaining two trial jump opportunities.
However, Meng Yun from the G Province Sports Team tried two more jumps in a row. However, perhaps due to his unstable mentality, his performance in the latter two jumps was relatively average and he failed to surpass the result of his first jump.
***
On this side, the men's long jump qualifying round was still in progress. Jiang Yuan, who had successfully left a psychological shadow on the other players, had already left the long jump venue and arrived at the waiting area for the 100-meter preliminaries.
In the waiting area, some of the 69 contestants from various provincial and sports school teams are already waiting, while the rest are still warming up in the warm-up area as they still have a long time before their debut.
In the men's 100m preliminaries that followed, Zhou Yuang and Su Yu were both ranked relatively high in the preliminaries, so they had both completed their warm-ups and were waiting in the waiting area for their turn.
The rules for qualifying for today's finals are different from those of the previous summer camp test matches. The 69 contestants in total will be divided into 8 preliminary groups of 8-9 people each. The qualifying places for the finals are not taken from the top few in each preliminary group, but a total preliminary score record is made based on the contestants' preliminary scores. Ultimately, the top 8 contestants out of the 69 contestants will directly advance to the final in the afternoon.
In other words, whether you can advance or not has nothing to do with your opponents in the same group, but is purely related to your own performance.
It is impossible for the qualifying places in the 8 groups to be distributed evenly. It is possible that multiple players in one group will qualify at the same time, or that all players in another group will be wiped out and no one will qualify.
This is a competition system that Su Yu has never experienced before. He not only needs to compare with opponents in the same group, but also with the other 68 opponents in the field, to compete for the only 8 places to advance to the finals.
When Jiang Yuan came, Su Yu was standing alone in the corner. Although his face looked expressionless as usual, in fact only he knew that he could hear his heartbeats like war drums in his ears.
"Xiaoyu, are you nervous?"
Jiang Yuan asked after noticing that Su Yu was in a slightly different state than usual.
Su Yu had his eyes closed originally, but after hearing Jiang Yuan's voice, he opened his eyes and looked at Jiang Yuan. After frowning, he put his right hand on his left chest, feeling the strong beating of his heart in his chest. He felt that in his past life, his heart had never beaten so strongly.
After he closed his eyes and felt it carefully again, he looked at Jiang Yuan again and said, "No, I want to play in the game."
It's not nervousness, it's anticipation.
Jiang Yuan looked at Su Yu's serious expression, was slightly stunned, and then a gentle smile appeared on his face: "Okay, I'll watch you play from the sidelines."
On the side, Zhou Yuang also came over and said, "Hey, hey, hey, Yuanzi, this is not right. You only watch our little ancestor's game and not mine?"
Jiang Yuan looked at him expressionlessly: "You also know that Xiaoyu is my little ancestor, who are you?"
Zhou Yuang immediately pretended to be heartbroken, but soon he burst into laughter and said, "Let me tell you, I just listened to everyone around me talking about who has the chance to advance to the 100-meter final this afternoon. The nominees are all kinds of people, but Xiaoyu and I are not among them."
At this point, Zhou Yuang shook his head and said, "Xiao Yu, in the game later, let's teach those guys a lesson!"
Su Yu listened to Zhou Yuang's speech and said "hmm" calmly.
To him, the meaning of Zhou Yuang's words was not to "show someone a lesson", but that he would agree no matter what - because he really didn't want to lose, he wanted to win.
He never knew that he had such a strong desire to win in his bones. No matter it was a small competition like the summer camp test match or this one which was considered the highest level U16 competition in the country, he always had a strong desire to win.
This eager feeling of anticipation made the blood in my body boil.
Even though he knew that in this race, there were top national athletes like Ye Minghao and Jiang Ruohui who could run under 11 seconds, as well as athletes from various provincial teams and sports schools who could run under 11.50 seconds.
According to Pei Dingshan's judgment before the game, if he and Zhou Yuang wanted to enter the finals, they had to get a preliminary result of at least 11.50 seconds - this was a result he had never achieved in training, and it was also a result that Zhou Yuang had not been able to achieve after making technical changes.
But even so, his heart couldn't help but beat and look forward to it.
At this moment, he can't wait to get on the field!
At the same time, Fang Linsen and Zhang Ping in the waiting area were also paying attention to Su Yu's location.
Seeing the two people looking at Su Yu, Zhou Yuang beside him laughed and said, "I almost forgot, Xiaoyu, you are quite lucky to be in the same group with these two friends."
Listening to Zhou Yuang's words, Su Yu turned his gaze towards Fang Linsen and Zhang Ping and said calmly, "See you at the stadium."
Zhou Yuang looked at Zhang Ping and Fang Linsen's unhappy faces and added with a smile: "I'm really envious. You will be able to experience for yourself the strength of the wildcard players in the summer camp in a while!"
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