Chapter 23
The venue used by the S Province Sports Team for this base competition is a standard-sized outdoor track and field stadium. A high jump competition area is arranged on one of the short sides. The location of this high jump venue is close to the finish line of the 100-meter track on the right side near the rostrum.
When Jiang Yuan arrived at the assembly point for the high jump qualifying round, the fourth group of the 100-meter preliminaries where Zhou Yuang was was about to begin not far away.
Because there are a total of 69 contestants in the 100m preliminaries, they cannot be evenly distributed among the preliminaries groups. Therefore, starting from the fourth group, there are 9 contestants in each of the 5 preliminaries groups out of the 8 preliminaries.
At this time, the 9 players in Zhou Yuang's preliminary group have already stood in front of the starting line. Among his opponents in the same group, the strongest one is Jiang Ruohui from the G Province Sports Team.
Although Jiang Ruohui is not as good as Ye Minghao in terms of personal strength, his PB of 10.89 seconds is enough for him and Ye Minghao to stand at the top of the pyramid of this base competition.
In the coaching area of the audience seats, coaches from various provincial teams were quite envious of the G Province Sports Team. After all, Ye Minghao and Jiang Ruohui, who were 15 years old and could run such results now, were good prospects who would have the potential to break the 10.20 and 10.10 mark in the future.
Since the track and field atmosphere in China is not particularly strong, the general public usually only pays attention to track and field events during major competitions such as the Asian Games, the Olympics, and the World Championships. After watching too many major competitions, people always feel that breaking 10 in the 100 meters seems to be the norm.
In fact, don’t be fooled by the fact that those 100-meter sprinters often break the 10-second mark in international competitions, as if breaking the 10-second mark is a very easy thing. In fact, as of 2017, not to mention Chinese athletes, including all Asians, the total number of people who have broken the 10-second mark does not exceed 5.
Especially in China, 10.20 seconds is already the threshold for testing an excellent 100-meter athlete. Among the current domestic athletes, there are only 6 who can break 10.20 seconds in the 100-meter race (regardless of wind speed bonus).
So when these coaches generally believe that Ye Minghao and Jiang Ruohui have a chance to break the 10.20 or even 10.10 barrier in the future, it means that these coaches are still very optimistic that Ye Minghao and Jiang Ruohui can become China's top 100m runners in the future.
After all, there are often young athletes who can run under 11 seconds, but there are few athletes who can continue to run after breaking the 11-second mark.
When the coaches in the coaching booth communicated with each other, they would also talk about other players in the same group as Jiang Ruohui, such as Zhou Yuang, who was recruited by Pei Dingshan together with Su Yu.
"Coach Xiao Pei, you are also the one coaching this Zhou Yuang, right? What do you think of his potential?"
Pei Dingshan glanced at Zhou Yuang, who had already squatted on the starting blocks as everyone was instructed to take their positions, and said calmly, "Not bad."
When the coaches around heard this comment, they looked at each other and shook their heads with a smile: "Coach Xiao Pei, you are quite cautious."
Pei Dingshan did not refute the coaches' cautious evaluation, so the coaches around him started talking about other things. After all, in the eyes of these coaches, Pei Dingshan was a person who could make such a domineering declaration as "the national record will be his name in the future", but now when commenting on Zhou Yuang, he only used the two words "not bad", which meant that Pei Dingshan might not be so optimistic about Zhou Yuang.
Of course, if these coaches could ask Pei Dingshan what the standard of "good" is before diverting their attention, perhaps they would have come to a completely different conclusion.
The coaches in the audience continued their discussion, while the athletes on the track were already prepared - the false start incident in the previous game had probably put a lot of pressure on this group of athletes, so this group of athletes were more focused than ever before the start of the race to avoid the tragedy of false start again.
In such a tense atmosphere, the referee once again gave the command "ready", followed by the sound of the starting gun "bang".
The game begins!
In this 100-meter preliminaries, Zhou Yuang's position in the second lane was not very good. If he was still in the same irritable state as before, perhaps the starting position of this lane would make him feel particularly irritated. However, after Su Yu stepped out to block Ye Minghao and Jiang Ruohui's line of sight from him, Su Yu's words "Don't worry about it, focus on yourself" seemed to wake him up like an epiphany.
Afterwards, in the third group of the preliminary round, Su Yu used his performance to illustrate what it means to "don't worry about anything and focus on yourself."
The little ancestor of their dormitory 303 was able to remain calm and focused even when a competitor in the same group started early and ruined his excellent start. He even gave an even better start the second time.
So is he going to allow himself to be controlled by emotions outside of the game?
With this in mind, Zhou Yuang calmed down before the starting line and focused his attention on the track in front of him. When the preparation sound and the bang of the starting gun sounded one after another, he stepped on the starting blocks and started running!
Perhaps it was because of his concentration, or maybe it was for some other reason, but when Zhou Yuang's left foot stepped on the front pedal of the starting block, the lingering awkward feeling that he had felt even after countless training sessions since the technical change seemed to disappear at that moment. Then his right leg swung forward quickly, and the series of starting stepping and accelerating movements were so smooth that one could not tell that he was a runner who had just completed the technical change.
The coaches in the audience were originally focusing on Jiang Ruohui in lane 6, but after the starting gun sounded, they discovered that it was not only Jiang Ruohui in lane 6 who had a rapid burst of momentum and was leading the pack. Zhou Yuang in lane 2, who Pei Dingshan described as just "okay," also showed excellent reaction speed and burst of momentum in the start of this round.
In the audience seats, the students of the summer camp did not understand what the coaches were thinking. Su Yu’s performance in the previous group’s preliminaries had given them a surprise beyond their expectations. Naturally, these students were also looking forward to Zhou Yuang, whose performance was only 0.01 seconds behind Su Yu in the final test match.
From the moment the starting gun sounded, the students in the audience began to cheer loudly for Zhou Yuang on the field.
“Come on, come on!!!”
"Go Zhou Yuang!!!"
The students' cheers were not uniform, but teenagers aged fourteen or fifteen were at the age when they spared no effort. Everyone was cheering loudly and enthusiastically for Zhou Yuang. When they found that Zhou Yuang's speed was the same as that of the seemingly very powerful young player in the sixth lane, the cheers from the audience became more intense.
On the track, accompanied by the students' fierce cheers, this group of young contestants in the preliminary rounds are also sprinting forward with all their might.
In the sixth lane, Jiang Ruohui was originally in a relatively relaxed state. He knew his own results well. It was just a preliminary round. With his average score of around 11.10 seconds, he could advance to the finals even if he relaxed a little. However, he did not expect that in the early stages, he caught a glimpse of someone almost in the same position as him on the far right side out of the corner of his eye.
The sudden sense of crisis forced Jiang Ruohui to temporarily change his relaxed pace, but this temporary change in rhythm also brought additional burden to his physical energy consumption.
I was careless.
When Jiang Ruohui temporarily adjusted his pace and sped up his running, Zhou Yuang in the second lane did not notice Jiang Ruohui's change.
Just as Su Yu said to him - focus on yourself.
During the entire summer camp period, he continued to complete different training and basic skill exercises such as starting sprint, acceleration and return, speed endurance, etc. under the guidance of Pei Dingshan.
Until today's game, although he had mastered these skills relatively proficiently, the sequelae of the technical changes still made him have an irresistible resistance to his current technical movements and active leg power.
Zhou Yuang originally thought that it would take him at least half a year to suppress the resistance from the bottom of his heart, but as the game started and he focused on the game, the resistance from the bottom of his heart seemed to fade away at the same time.
Smooth and natural.
When he sprinted at full speed on the track, Zhou Yuang felt that the state was even smoother than in the past when he used his right leg as the active force leg.
There was no longer that sluggish feeling in each running step and in the connection between each movement that made him feel irritated.
In the end, Zhou Yuang crossed the finish line in a state as smooth and free as breathing. Although Jiang Ruohui adjusted his rhythm and accelerated his sprint in the later stage and still surpassed him to cross the finish line in the first place, Zhou Yuang did not care about it.
After the technical transformation, the psychological barrier, which is almost the biggest difficulty in technical transformation, has faded away, so the subsequent improvement in performance is natural!
With such a mood, Zhou Yuang ran straight towards Su Yu without stopping when he crossed the finish line, and picked up Su Yu who was standing beside the track and lifted him up.
Su Yu was originally standing outside the court, preparing to watch Jiang Yuan's next match, but was picked up by the overly excited Zhou Yuang and hung in the air. It was so sudden that Su Yu was unable to react when Zhou Yuang lifted him up.
When he came to his senses, his usually sickly face turned into a confused one, and then he slapped Zhou Yuang's hand viciously, staring at him and said: "Let go!!"
Zhou Yuang also felt that he was probably too excited, so he put Su Yu down obediently. However, he still hugged Su Yu regardless of his ugly face and started to grab his head. He did not let go of Su Yu until Su Yu stretched out his hand to push him away.
"Hey, thank you!"
Zhou Yuang let go of Su Yu and then calmed down with difficulty. He straightened his face and thanked him solemnly. Regardless of whether what Su Yu said to him was a coincidence or not, he did calm down because of Su Yu's words, and was infected by Su Yu's concentration on the game, and by chance he overcame his psychological barriers.
At this moment, the results of the fourth group of preliminaries have been announced on the large electronic screen on site. In this group, Zhou Yuang ranked second with a score of 11.31, and Jiang Ruohui, who ranked first, got a final score of 11.21. At the same time, due to the update of the results of the fourth group of preliminaries, Su Yu's overall ranking temporarily dropped from the original second to fourth place.
In the audience, the summer camp students were also surprised when they saw Zhou Yuang's result.
"Hey, Zhou Yuang also set a new PB?"
In the summer camp, many students had heard of Zhou Yuang. They knew that he had been stuck at his PB of 11.33 seconds for a long time and had always wanted to break the 11.30 mark.
However, due to the technical changes, these students also heard the coaches in the summer camp discuss and felt that Zhou Yuang would need to continue to adapt to his new technology in the short term, and he might have to wait until next year to refresh his PB.
As a result, no one expected that Zhou Yuang would break the 11.33 barrier in today's preliminaries, and he is only one step away from his goal of 11.30.
Beside the track, after seeing his own results, Zhou Yuang waved his fist. Just as he was about to turn around and celebrate with Su Yu, he saw Su Yu frowning and distanced himself from him.
Seeing Su Yu's actions, Zhou Yuang couldn't help laughing, and then said: "Hey, Xiao Yu, I won this preliminary round!"
Su Yu glanced at him and said "hmm" calmly.
Zhou Yuang looked at his appearance and leaned closer to him and said, "Hey, Xiaoyu, you're not angry, are you?"
Su Yu frowned and looked at him strangely, as if asking "Why am I angry?"
Zhou Yuang smiled and said, "Don't you want to win?"
Su Yu's frown did not loosen, but this time he did not ask a silent question, but said bluntly: "I want to win, but I don't need anyone to make me win."
“I want to win, it’s all about me.”
"You can surpass me, but I will continue to surpass you and everyone who is stronger than me - if not today, then later."
"So why should I be angry?"
The child looked sick and his complexion was not very good, but his eyes always maintained a firm belief, and he seemed not to be troubled or shaken by any problem.
Hearing this, Zhou Yuang couldn't count how many times he had been amazed by Su Yu today. Looking at the child who seemed to be sick in front of him, Zhou Yuang once again put away the joking look on his face and said to him: "I'm sorry, I misunderstood."
Su Yu just glanced at him and turned his eyes away to continue paying attention to the high jump qualifying competition in front of him.
But before turning around, he left a message to Zhou Yuang: "See you in the final this afternoon."
Hearing the fighting spirit in Su Yu's words, Zhou Yuang immediately smiled and said, "Of course, see you in the finals this afternoon."
***
During the fourth group of the men's 100m preliminaries, the management referee in charge of assisting registration in the high jump group had confirmed the arrival of all contestants and handed over a total of 42 high jumpers from each team to the chief referee.
After confirming that all the athletes were present, the referee directly announced that the high jump qualifying round would start from a height of 1.5 meters. According to the high jump rules, each athlete has three attempts at each height. The qualifying round will end based on the number of qualifiers. When the number of qualifiers is less than 10, the height of the bar will no longer be raised.
When the referee was announcing the rules of the qualifying tournament to the contestants, Jiang Yuan was quietly listening to the referee's explanation among the contestants, looking like a good student. There was no sign that he had smiled and said to Su Yu, "Then you have to come back with first place" before going on stage.
If the players in the same group with Jiang Yuan did not know this guy from the summer camp of S Province Sports Team before today's competition, then after the previous long jump qualifying competition, there were few young players in the field who did not know Jiang Yuan's name.
This terrifying athlete jumped a distance of 7.37 meters in just one jump in the long jump qualifying competition, and won the first place in the long jump qualifying competition with a huge advantage.
Even though he looked harmless at the moment, he could not avoid becoming the focus of attention of the young players around him.
Zhang Zhaohe and Meng Yun, who was previously "abused" by Jiang Yuan, are very good teammates. He also watched Meng Yun's competition before. At first, he was happy for Meng Yun's excellent first jump. Who would have thought that this happiness only lasted for less than a few minutes. Jiang Yuan, who appeared second, made people feel what true "good" meant.
When Zhang Zhaohe learned that Jiang Yuan was going to participate in the high jump competition, his heart tightened. He secretly asked people from the S Province Sports Team about Jiang Yuan's high jump PB. After getting the number of 2 meters, he was really relieved - although for athletes of their age group, 2 meters is also a very outstanding result, but at least it is not so strong that it is not inhuman.
At least Zhang Zhaohe's own high jump PB is 2.06 meters, which is 6 centimeters higher than Jiang Yuan's 2 meters. Such a difference in results makes Zhang Zhaohe feel a little more confident when facing Jiang Yuan.
At the scene, after the referee announced the rules, the high jump qualifying competition officially began.
In this round, Jiang Yuan's draw order was not the second place like in the long jump, but he happened to get the last place. It would be his turn only after the previous 41 players had finished jumping.
Because the qualifying round for a total of 42 contestants takes too long, in order to prevent their body heat from dissipating, the contestants present all prepared sports jackets with long sleeves and long pants to wear. They would take off their jackets and long pants and start jumping in short competition suits when it was their turn to go on stage.
Jiang Yuan was no exception. Wearing a white sports jacket and standing in the preparation area, he looked like a good student who had strayed in, rather than a serious sports student.
Since there were so many contestants in the qualifying round, and the order of appearance between Zhang Zhaohe and Jiang Yuan was quite far apart, Zhang Zhaohe only paid attention to Jiang Yuan for a while at the beginning, and then focused on observing the performance of other contestants. It was not until the first round of all contestants was almost over and the referee was calling Jiang Yuan's name that everyone realized that Jiang Yuan was still wearing his coat and had no intention of taking it off.
"Jiang Yuan?"
The referee, who was also the assistant coach of the S Province Sports Team, glanced at Jiang Yuan and said unhappily, "What's going on? Why aren't you ready yet?"
Jiang Yuan smiled and raised his right hand: "Number 42 Jiang Yuan, I would like to request a waiver of the 1.5-meter height."
It was not until he said this easily that the contestants around him turned their heads in surprise - applying for exemption from jumping? !
This is a rule in the high jump competition. Athletes can choose not to jump at the current height and try again at the next height. Confident athletes can use this to save energy by skipping the jump at the lower stage of the previous bar.
Of course, as mentioned before, we need players who have confidence in themselves.
There have been many athletes who were overconfident in themselves, so much so that they were unable to clear the bar at a higher height after the free jump, and ultimately retired without any results.
These junior contestants who came to participate in the competition have more or less been warned by their coaches - don't think you can just choose to exempt from the jump because you have some ability. That is something only those contestants who are confident in themselves can do. If you dare to apply for exemption from the jump and end up not getting any results, you will see how they will deal with you when they come back!
Generally, coaches of the junior group will give such instructions to prevent these children from getting dizzy and also to prevent these children from not knowing how to judge whether their situation is suitable for applying for exemption from jump.
Therefore, in the 1.5-meter height competition just now, the 41 contestants before Jiang Yuan did not apply for exemption from the jump. Their idea was that even if they could not jump through the subsequent heights, at least they could get a result in the 1.5-meter stage, which could be regarded as an explanation to themselves.
In the end, no one expected that Jiang Yuan would appear and apply for exemption from jumping.
Everyone couldn't help but look at him a few more times in surprise, and after confirming that Jiang Yuan was determined to apply for exemption from the jump, the referee nodded and recorded his exemption from the jump, and then signaled the crossbar referee in front of the horizontal bar to raise the height of the horizontal bar to 1.55 meters.
Another round of trial jumps, all 41 contestants successfully cleared the bar again. When it was Jiang Yuan's turn, the young man in a white sports jacket once again applied for exemption from the jump.
"Is this a no-brainer? Is he really not afraid of not getting any results?"
Some contestants grumbled in private, but Jiang Yuan didn't care at all. He continued to do his warm-up exercises but never took off his coat.
The horizontal bar began to rise to 1.6 meters.
At this height, three or four of the 41 players began to fail to clear the pole, but when it was Jiang Yuan's turn, he still had no intention of taking off his coat.
Even Zhang Zhaohe admired Jiang Yuan's confidence, and was somewhat envious of the freedom given to Jiang Yuan by the coach of the S Province Sports Team - if his coach saw that he dared to skip before getting any results in the qualifying competition, he would definitely not let him down.
The coach of the S Province Sports Team has a pretty good mental quality, right?
***
At this moment, Liu Wenjian, who had a "good mental quality", had his mouth twitching so much that he wanted to rush to the scene and ask Jiang Yuan what he was thinking.
This kid, after he secured victory by jumping over a 2-meter height during the final competition, refused to challenge a higher height. That's fine, it's just a final competition anyway.
But what about today? !
Today is the National U16 Track and Field Base Competition!
The highest level competition in the country!
This kid actually started avoiding jumps continuously at the beginning!
Even though Liu Wenjian had enough confidence in Jiang Yuan and believed that this guy could definitely jump over a higher height, but when he saw Jiang Yuan applying for exemptions one after another, the corners of his smiling mouth twitched.
The coaches nearby did not realize that Liu Wenjian's smile was just a forced one. After seeing the horizontal bar rise to 1.65 meters but Jiang Yuan once again applied for exemption from the jump, these coaches could not help but exclaimed: "Coach Liu, Jiang Yuan's mental quality is really good."
Most athletes, even if they dare to apply for exemption from jumping, would not dare to jump so many heights in a row. At least they have to give themselves a bottom score at a relatively safe height.
But Jiang Yuan didn't seem to think so.
By the time they reached the height of 1.7 meters, several players on the field had been eliminated because they could not clear the bar. This time, when player No. 38 cleared the bar, the young man who had remained unmoved on the field finally took off his white sports jacket and trousers.
All the contestants were now looking expectantly at the young man who had taken off his coat - Jiang Yuan was finally going to play!
The author has something to say:
Liu·Good psychological quality·Wen Jian: (gritting teeth)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
