Chapter 37
For Su Yu and Jiang Yuan, they didn't know that Pei Dingshan introduced them to his uncle. After Jiang Yuan's preliminaries ended in the morning, the two returned to the backcourt lounge.
Compared with the number of players who came to compete in the morning, after a whole morning of preliminaries, the number of players in the backcourt lounge of the S Province Sports Team has been reduced. Many players who failed to advance to the finals in the morning have packed up their backpacks after the game, or watched the game in the on-site spectator seats, or returned to the provincial team to review the game with their respective coaches.
When Jiang Yuan and Su Yu returned to the backcourt lounge, Zhou Yuang was also packing his backpack. After turning around and seeing the two of them, he came over with an envious look on his face: "You two are back?"
Su Yu saw Zhou Yuang packing his backpack, frowned slightly, and replied in a muffled voice: "Yeah."
Perhaps noticing Su Yu's gaze, Zhou Yuang laughed and raised his hand to rub Su Yu's head viciously: "What's the matter? Xiaoyu, you are not feeling embarrassed because you advanced but I didn't, right?"
Su Yu looked at him sullenly, and rarely let Zhou Yuang rub his head without slapping his claws away, but said in a muffled voice: "I am not."
Zhou Yuang looked at Su Yu, who rarely allowed himself to be bullied, and couldn't help but stretched out his hand to pinch his cheek. After Su Yu glared back at him fiercely, he chuckled and let go of his hand and said, "Alright, I know whether you are right or not, but I tell you, this competition is about strength. You are stronger than me now, so you can advance, but I can't. When I am stronger than you in the future, then I will be the one to advance and you won't be able to."
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about in this kind of thing."
"Just look at Ye Minghao and Jiang Ruohui in our group. They have already participated in two races. In both races, Ye Minghao advanced while Jiang Ruohui ran as a runner-up. Does Ye Minghao feel embarrassed too?"
After listening to Zhou Yuang's words of comfort, Su Yu observed Zhou Yuang's face again and indeed there was no sign of unhappiness, so he heaved a sigh of relief.
For Su Yu, he had never had this kind of experience of competing with friends in the past, so when he opened the door of the lounge and saw Zhou Yuang packing his backpack, he instinctively felt a little awkward.
But after listening to Zhou Yuang's consolation, Su Yu finally added: "I won't."
Zhou Yuang looked at him with a smile: "Hey, aren't you embarrassed?"
Su Yu raised his eyes to look at him: "No, I mean, I won't lose."
Hearing Su Yu's answer, Zhou Yuang was stunned for a moment, then he began to rub his head viciously and funny: "Good of you, Su Xiaoyu, it's a pity that I'm still comforting you after losing the game."
This time, Su Yu slapped Zhou Yuang's claws away and looked at him: "I just saw the replay of your game. You had a chance to win - your movements were distorted in the second half. You were anxious."
Zhou Yuang was simply struck by Su Yu's critical hit: "That's enough, it's impolite to say it again."
Su Yu shut his mouth after being suppressed by Zhou Yuang, but he could see that Zhou Yuang actually understood what mistakes he had made in the game just now.
In the morning's preliminaries, because it was his first time participating in a Grand Prix-level event, although he thought he was not nervous, he actually couldn't control his condition during the race. In the first half of the race, he had a certain advantage. He was even briefly in the lead in the first half, but as his opponents approached, he began to feel nervous and subconsciously increased the force of his steps.
He began to intentionally increase his stride and cadence, hoping to run faster in the final stages. However, when he finished the race and reviewed it, he found that his attempts to increase his stride and cadence in the final stages were completely useless. He felt that he had increased the force of stepping on the ground, but the actual effect during the running process was to increase his ground contact time and slow down his cadence.
In other words, the reason for his failure in the final part of the preliminaries in the morning was just as Su Yu said - he was anxious.
The imbalance in his mentality directly led to the deformation of his technical movements. He clearly felt that he had consumed more physical energy and strength, but the final effect was to slow down his speed in the second half.
Jiang Yuan glanced at the mask of pain on Zhou Yuang's face, smiled and patted his shoulder: "Every failure makes you wiser."
Zhou Yuang could only nod his head sadly: "Alright, alright, you two hurry up, the massage teacher's eyes are almost glaring at me, you two hurry up and get a massage to relax, there are still finals in the afternoon."
***
While Su Yu and Jiang Yuan were receiving massages from the provincial team's massage teacher in the S Province Track and Field Team's lounge, outside the stadium, the students of No. 12 Middle School, who had already finished their morning 'cheering' work, were collectively excited.
The entire Penguin group of Class 1, Grade 2 of No. 12 Middle School was buzzing with messages, and in the forum of No. 12 Middle School, the number of posts cheering for Su Yu and Jiang Yuan was so long that it stretched to the sky.
[Ahhh, the academic genius is so handsome, the academic master is so handsome! Damn it, what happened? I couldn’t even watch the game in person QAQ]
[People who are traveling abroad, please don't say anything. I am the one who is losing out. It's just a local tour, but my parents happened to choose the 2nd and 3rd, so they missed the game of Xue Shen and his friends. Now my dad is calling me to take pictures, but I am not in the mood to take pictures. I just want to cheer them on at the scene QAQ]
[Wow, this is so handsome, really so handsome! You don’t know, at first the spectators around thought that our academic god and academic master were here to give away their gifts, but after seeing the results of our academic god and academic master, their mouths opened wider and wider, they were all stunned. Especially there was an uncle who was so shocked when he saw our academic god’s reaction time at the start, he called his friend and told his friend that they must come to watch the replay and the final in the afternoon - hey, but what exactly is the reaction time at the start? 】
[@upper floor, this is the time it takes a sprinter to react to the sound of the starting gun and push off the starting blocks to start running. Hey, I didn't know it clearly at first, but I just checked it out. By the way, guess what? I looked it up and found out that the starting reaction time of professional athletes is basically around 0.15. For example, our academic god's reaction speed of 0.127 seconds is basically only seen in top international competitions. 】
[Hahaha, it’s not just the academic god, our top student is also awesome, right? The 7.83 meters in the long jump and the consecutive clears in the high jump stunned the audience in the back row. At first, I heard them say that if Jiang Yuan could maintain this performance in the afternoon competition, he would have a chance of winning a medal! 】
These kids from No. 12 Middle School are at an age when their collective sense of honor is overflowing. The performance of Jiang Yuan and Su Yu in the morning game made all the students from No. 12 Middle School who came to cheer them on feel what it means to be proud of it. At this moment, whether it is their Penguin Space, Moments or No. 12 Middle School's forum, it is filled with a fiery and joyful atmosphere. They can't wait for the afternoon game to start so that they can cheer for Su Yu and Jiang Yuan.
In one of the stands at the scene, Wang Yangming, who had already lost his head, covered his neck in pain - head, head, from the moment he talked rudely this morning, you are no longer a head, but someone else's ball.
Zhong Wen looked at his cousin and chuckled proudly: "Brother, look, when will you give me my ball to play with?"
Wang Yangming looked at his cousin's smug look painfully and said angrily, "No! Let's make another bet. I have to win my head back!"
Zhong Wen spread his hands: "No, your head is already my ball now, what else do you have to bet with me?"
Wang Yangming gritted his teeth and said, "Go away, I'll treat you and your classmates to hamburgers. After you finish eating, I'll redeem my head. We'll fight again in the afternoon based on our abilities!"
"In the finals this afternoon, let's bet on whether your two classmates can win medals!"
Zhong Wen chuckled and looked back at his classmates: "Okay, let's talk about it this afternoon. Classmates, come on, let's go eat with my ball! Our lunch is settled!"
A passerby who had watched Wang Yangming's "head-to-ball battle" this morning patted Wang Yangming on the shoulder and said, "Friend, gambling is not allowed."
Of course, the point is - you have already suffered such a big loss at the hands of those two devil brothers this morning. Are you going to repeat the same mistake in the final this afternoon?
***
At the same time, it was not just the students from No. 12 Middle School who were discussing Jiang Yuan and Su Yu. On the country's largest track and field forum, 'Athletics Kingdom', after the morning preliminaries ended, someone also opened a separate thread and began discussing Su Yu and Jiang Yuan, two kids from the S Province Sports Team.
Topic: [S Province Sports Team’s short jump talent exploded? 】
Topic content: [In the morning's National Track and Field Grand Prix S Province leg, there are two young players from the S Province team. Does anyone know where they came from? I did a lot of searching before posting this thread, and I only found one piece of information about someone who seems to be Jiang Yuan. It said that he won the all-age championship in the long jump and high jump for junior high school students at the middle school sports meet in S Province. But I looked at it, and it seems that his winning results were less than 7 meters in the long jump and less than 2 meters in the high jump, which is a big difference from today's results. I don't know if they are two different people. As for Su Yu, it's even more outrageous. There's no Su Yu, a middle school student in S Province who is good at sprinting, found on the entire Internet. 】
2L: What's wrong? I don't understand this post. Does it mean that the provincial team of Province S has produced two good players? 】
5L: [@2L, my friend, you didn’t pay attention to today’s Grand Prix? There were two amazing kids in the morning competition. The one called Jiang Yuan jumped 7.83 meters in his first attempt in the long jump qualifying round, and then he directly applied for exemption from the next two jumps. Finally, he advanced to the finals as the second in the group. Then in the high jump qualifying round, he cleared the bar at 2.00 meters, 2.05 meters, 2.10 meters and 2.15 meters in one go. He was the only player on the scene who cleared the bar at all heights in one go in the qualifying round, and finally advanced to the finals as the first in the group.
In addition, the kid named Su Yu ran 10.62 seconds against the wind in the preliminary round, and his real strength is estimated to be around 10.60 seconds. Of course, this is not the point. The point is that his response time to the gun in the morning preliminaries was 0.127 seconds, which was the well-deserved first reaction speed in the preliminaries. Finally, these two kids are newcomers to the S Province Sports Team, both of them are only 14 years old. Many of my friends in S City have heard the news and plan to go to the scene in person in the afternoon to watch the finals of these two kids. It feels like it will be exciting! 】
8L: [Wow, at the age of 14, he long jumped 7.83 meters, high jumped 2.15 meters, ran 100 meters in 10.62 seconds, and his reaction time when hearing the gun was 0.127 seconds? ? ? 】
10L: [Good results, worthy of attention! However, judging from the current results, the potential index of this athlete named Jiang Yuan seems to be stronger. He only had one long jump, and regardless of whether it was an accident, but he was able to clear the bar in the high jump continuously, which shows that he has real strength. As for Su Yu, his result of 10.62 seconds is very good, but Ye Minghao broke the U16 national record with 10.47 seconds in the previous stop. This result is obviously more promising. As for the reaction time data of 0.127 seconds, I personally tend to think that this was just an accident. 】
Most of the people who discuss daily in this forum, Track and Field Kingdom, are veteran track and field fans. These people will pay a little attention to young athletes and promising prospects, but they will not be particularly optimistic about an athlete's unexpected performance once or twice.
After all, China's track and field has produced many good seedlings in the past few decades, but seedlings are just seedlings after all. For track and field events, the results in youth can hardly directly represent the results of the entire sports career, especially in the sprint - not to mention that Su Yu has only run a result of 10.62 seconds now, even Ye Minghao, who has currently broken the national U16 record, is still just labeled as "to be observed" in the eyes of these track and field fans.
Because in the 100-meter event, the closer you get to the top, the harder it is to climb. Haven't you seen how many athletes are stuck outside of 10 seconds and can't make any progress? In China, there are countless athletes who are stuck outside of 10.10, 10.20, or even 10.30/40.
After breaking the 11-second mark, every subsequent step was filled with difficulties and obstacles.
In the past, there were people who tried to gain the title of genius by achieving great results at a younger age. It should be said that such methods are very common in China. They would select a child with good talent and change his registered age to a younger one.
In competitive sports, which are a test of physical talent, there will be a significant gap in physical development, strength, and explosive power growth between young athletes if they are one or two years older.
Therefore, many people who want to take advantage of loopholes will deliberately reduce the ages of some talented young players in order to break project records and gain popularity.
It’s just that competitive sports are the cruelest and the fairest. Your talent and ability will be what they are. Even if you temporarily achieve good results in your youth by relying on the advantage brought by "changing your age", after you are twenty years old, when you can no longer achieve good results by relying on your age advantage, your true strength will be revealed.
Precisely because these track and field fans have been genuinely excited about many "young geniuses", over time, they have become more cautious about the new "genius athletes" that have emerged in track and field events.
But just when many people were saying "let's wait and see", the owner of this building suddenly popped up and posted a picture - the screenshot was a picture of Su Yu in the playback of the Jigu live broadcast.
56L (Original Poster): [Well, I don’t have any other intentions. I just want to post a picture of contestant Su Yu for everyone to see. I think, based on the image of contestant Su Yu, I just think that his age of 14 has been changed to a higher age, not a lower age…]
After everyone looked at the picture posted by the original poster, the whole building couldn't help but fall silent for a minute - to be honest, Su Yu's image seemed to have indeed avoided some suspicions of changing his age.
Then another audience member who had watched the game in the morning came out and said that Su Yu and Jiang Yuan were classmates. A group of children from No. 12 Middle School came to the scene to cheer for them in the morning. He asked casually and said that Su Yu and Jiang Yuan grew up together, so the possibility of Jiang Yuan changing his age should be relatively low.
66L: [If that’s the case, then it will mainly depend on the situation of the game in the afternoon, right? Let’s observe and see. If it is indeed a new good seedling, then such results are worth looking forward to! Oh, by the way, is the No. 12 Middle School in Province S a private school? Why don’t I seem to have heard of the name of this sports school? Is it newly opened? So lucky? Two good ideas emerged at once? 】
68L: […Speaking of this, this is one of the reasons why I think Su Yu and Jiang Yuan would not falsify their ages. To be honest, No. 12 Middle School is not a sports school. It is a key middle school in our province, a provincial key school, where every year there is a chance for students to win the top spot in the middle school entrance exam and the college entrance exam. 】
? ? ?
The track and field fans who were originally discussing which sports school No. 12 Middle School was from suddenly had their brains freeze.
The moderator of the 68th floor also added one more sentence - [Su Yu and Jiang Yuan are both in the key class of the second grade of the 12th Middle School. By the way, their classmates call them the academic god and the academic tyrant respectively, especially Su Yu. It is said that his current academic performance in the grade is the best in the whole grade. 】
Everyone: (.)
Ah this.
If this is the case, then there is really no need or opportunity for such children to cheat on their age.
In short——
【Let’s watch the game in the afternoon!】 Let’s first see how these two kids perform this afternoon! 】
***
The 'afternoon session' of the Athletics Grand Prix is said to be in the afternoon, but the actual start time is already in the evening.
In fact, this is also the regular schedule for major events, mainly taking into account the audience's viewing time and the impact of the hot temperature in the afternoon on the athletes' condition. In addition, studies have shown that athletes' competitive state will reach its best performance in the evening and evening.
For various reasons, events related to athletes' explosiveness, strength and endurance performance in world-class competitions such as the Olympics, such as the semi-finals and finals of track and field events, are basically scheduled to take place after 7 p.m.
Of course, the National Track and Field Grand Prix did not strictly enforce this time arrangement. The afternoon session of the race was scheduled to start at 5 pm, and the audience had already entered the venue before 5 pm, and the athletes were able to do some warm-up adjustments on site.
When Su Yu and Jiang Yuan were preparing to go to the warm-up venue from the contestant channel, they happened to be bumped into by Ye Minghao and Jiang Ruohui.
After seeing the two, Jiang Ruohui smiled and said, "Hi, Jiang Yuan, Xiao Yu, you two are the pride of this group!"
Hearing Jiang Ruohui's words, Jiang Yuan smiled and said, "Congratulations to Ye Zi as well."
After hearing Jiang Yuan mention him, Ye Minghao also laughed. Compared with some time ago, Ye Minghao now looked more cheerful. After seeing Jiang Yuan and Su Yu, he took the initiative to walk over and gave them a big hug.
In this group, except Su Yu, the heights of the remaining four people are all over 180cm, so no matter who's hug it is, it is quite suffocating for Su Yu. After he finally pushed the person away, he looked at Jiang Yuan with some annoyance, and his eyes clearly showed an accusation: No matter whether it is Jiang Ruohui or Ye Minghao, they learned the habit of hugging everyone they see from Zhou Yuang!
Jiang Yuan looked at Su Yu, whose whole body was filled with protest, and rubbed his head in amusement, which earned him another "vicious" glare from his little ancestor.
Ye Minghao and Jiang Ruohui watched Su Yu glare at Jiang Yuan for a while with a smile, and then Ye Minghao said admiringly: "Xiao Yu, you have made progress again during this period of time."
Su Yu did not deny Ye Minghao's statement: "Yes."
Ye Minghao asked curiously: "Is it a technical reform?"
After all, there were only 20 days. If Su Yu achieved significant improvement through training in explosive power and strength, which is obviously unreasonable, then the only possibility is that Pei Dingshan made fine adjustments to Su Yu's technology, and it is obvious that this fine adjustment is very effective.
Su Yu nodded decisively again.
Ye Minghao thought about it and asked hesitantly, "What kind of technical reform is it? Can you tell me?"
Athletes like them who love sprinting from the bottom of their hearts immerse themselves in the world related to sprinting. It is very common for athletes who have a good relationship with each other to discuss new technical adjustments. However, some people mind their technical details being known by their opponents, so Ye Minghao still consulted Su Yu's opinion first.
Su Yu was not a person who cherished his own things. He was not disgusted by Ye Minghao's question, but gave a direct answer: "It is to fine-tune the foothold area."
After hearing Su Yu's answer, Ye Minghao understood: "Is it the mid-foot landing? The coaches of our provincial team have also been discussing this plan recently, but there is no unified opinion yet. Some coaches think that the adjustment of this plan is not very meaningful."
But after hearing Ye Minghao's answer, Su Yu became the one who was puzzled. He looked at Ye Minghao strangely: "Why is it meaningless? Landing on the toes will brake the speed. Continuous braking while running at a high speed will also produce great pressure on the knees and ankle joints. Landing on the soles of the feet will also generate forward propulsion during running..."
Ye Minghao was stunned when he heard Su Yu's question. Just when he was about to say something else, he was stopped by Jiang Ruohui beside him.
Jiang Ruohui didn't expect that Ye Minghao and Su Yu would actually start chatting during the warm-up time before the game. "Okay, Ye Zi, just say hello. You two and Jiang Yuan will be in the finals soon. If you have any topics, we can talk after the finals."
After Jiang Ruohui's reminder, Ye Minghao finally realized: "Yes, the game will start soon."
At this point, Ye Minghao glanced at Su Yu and smiled with some emotion: "I didn't expect that I would be competing with you again so soon, Xiao Yu."
Thinking about his intuition when he first met Su Yu, Ye Minghao felt that this was probably the most accurate intuition he had ever had in his life. Looking at Su Yu's eyes that lit up slightly when he heard the word "competition", he smiled and said to Su Yu:
"Xiaoyu, in the preliminaries this morning, it was the final sprint stage. It was hard to stimulate the state without an opponent, right? But tonight's final is different. In the 100m final tonight, two athletes broke the 10.40 mark, and one even ran under 10 seconds.
30 players from the national 4*100m relay team. ”
"Are you afraid of these opponents?"
Looking at Su Yu's eyes that were getting brighter and brighter, Ye Minghao felt that he had already anticipated the answer.
Su Yu asked him in a slightly puzzled tone: "Afraid? Why should you be afraid?"
As he spoke, Su Yu looked towards the stadium outside the contestant channel that was already illuminated by large lights. Anyone could see that what was written in his eyes was definitely not fear, but -
“I’m looking forward to it.”
***
In the audience seats, Wang Yangming, Zhong Wen and the students from No. 12 Middle School had all returned to their seats. In the audience seats for the evening final, the number of spectators was obviously much greater than that for the morning preliminaries. Many of them had heard that two talented young players had appeared in the morning's competition, so they planned to come and see it with their own eyes in the evening.
“Is it really that magical?”
“I’m still unsure about the 100m, but if the high jump performs consistently, I should have a chance to win a medal tonight.”
Zhong Wen and the other students in Class 1, Grade 2 of No. 12 Middle School felt unhappy when they heard similar discussions around them. After all, the top student in their class was awesome, but the god of study was awesome too, okay!
As for Wang Yangming, after a whole afternoon of brainwashing himself, he also drew some strength from the discussion posts on the Track and Field Kingdom Forum - that's right! There was still a lot of uncertainty in the morning's preliminaries, like Jiang Yuan's long jump. 7.83 meters was just his first attempt, and he didn't try again after that. Maybe that was his best performance?
With this thought in mind, Wang Yangming gritted his teeth and decided to bet his head back with his cousin.
"Zhong Wen, I've made up my mind!"
Zhong Wen turned to look at his brother: "What, what did you decide? Did you decide not to have your head?"
Wang Yangming said fiercely: "I have decided to bet my head back! Tonight I will bet whether the two of them can win medals in three individual events!"
"hiss."
Hearing his brother's words, Zhong Wen took a deep breath, then clapped his hands solemnly: "Thank you, brother, thank you for thinking so highly of my deskmate and academic genius."
After a round of applause, Zhong Wen asked again: "But brother, I kicked your head like a ball. If you win, you can take it back. What if you lose?"
Wang Yangming: "Lost?"
He glared: "Nonsense, there is no way I can lose this bet!"
The track and field fans around him wanted to stop him after hearing Wang Yangming's flag, but his actions were not faster than Wang Yangming's mouth.
Zhong Wen chuckled and said, "No, we still have to make a bet. How about this - our academic god and academic tyrant will definitely have many competitions in the future, but we still have to go to school, so we can't be there to cheer them on every day. If you lose the bet today, then when our academic god and academic tyrant have competitions in the future, you will be responsible for cheering them on. How about that?"
Huh?
No matter how you look at it, this bet is much lighter than his head. Although he needs to run around at the beginning of each season, he himself is a track and field fan, and running around to watch competitions is a common thing for him - Su Yu and Jiang Yuan are still children, how many competitions can they participate in?
Thinking of this, Wang Yangming waved his hand and said, "No problem!"
Wang Yangming originally thought that he would definitely not lose money on this bet, but for some reason, when he agreed to the bet, he seemed to feel a slight chill on his back?
***
At this time, on the sprint warm-up field, Su Yu had no idea that someone in the audience had made such an outrageous bet with Zhong Wen. At this time, he was occupying a place alone on the warm-up field, concentrating on his warm-up preparations.
Tonight's men's 100m final, as Ye Minghao said, is definitely a gathering of the country's strongest players.
The strongest among them is naturally Gao Tianwu, who is a regular player of the national 4*100m relay team. So far, Gao Tianwu's personal best in the 100m is 10.26 seconds, which has broken the 10.30 second mark for the 100m. At the same time, Gao Tianwu is only 25 years old this year, which is the golden age for a track and field athlete to achieve good results. Many domestic sports commentators believe that Gao Tianwu will be the next athlete in the country to break the 10.20 second mark.
Another runner who broke 10.40, Zhao Yingping, is definitely not weak either. Although his PB of 10.39 seems to just barely break into the 10.40 mark, Zhao Yingping has run under 10.50 many times this season. Domestic public opinion also generally believes that Zhao Yingping will soon have the opportunity to refresh his 100m PB.
At the same time, in addition to Gao Tianwu and Zhao Yingping, there are also talented young players like Ye Minghao who broke the 10.50 mark at the age of 15. In addition, the remaining four candidates' PBs are also within 10.60.
It can be said that among the eight athletes in tonight's men's 100m final, the weakest on paper is Su Yu, who just set his PB of 10.62 in the morning.
If an ordinary player faced such a situation, he might have retreated psychologically due to the enormous pressure before the game even started. But if someone could pay attention to Su Yu at this time, they would find that the eyes of this youngest and weakest player in the audience were filled with surging fighting spirit.
Su Yu looked at his opponents from afar - he thought, he couldn't wait to get on the court and fight with his opponents!
But unfortunately, the men's 100m final is scheduled for 18:36. Before that, the first to appear will be Jiang Yuan, who will participate in the men's long jump final at 17:00.
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