After attending the opening ceremony, Bai Yu and others returned to the stadium in the afternoon to watch the preliminary rounds of the track and field events.
The Universiade consists of 12 major events, with track and field having the most participants, making this qualifying round the most intense.
The entire afternoon was spent on sprints, starting with the 100-meter dash, and almost all the other sprint events were completed. Even in the evening, the stadium remained brightly lit as the preliminary rounds for the sprint events continued.
In this competition, Hu Tao registered for the 100-meter and 4x100-meter relay races, while Wang Hai registered for the 800-meter and 1500-meter races.
Hu Tao's events were completed quickly; he finished both preliminary rounds before 4 p.m. and successfully advanced to the next round. Wang Hai's 800-meter preliminary round, on the other hand, didn't start until after 7 p.m., making it the last track and field event of the first day.
After all, the 800 meters is not considered a sprint; it's more of a middle-distance run.
With Wang Hai's strength, he has absolute strength in both the 800m and 1500m events, and advancing to the next round will not be a problem at all.
Moreover, he advanced to the 800-meter final with the best time in his group. Given his ability, advancing to the final should be no problem. However, his final result will depend on his performance.
At 10 a.m. the next day, Bai Yu also took the stage, and his 3,000-meter qualifying race began.
Unlike the sprint races where each group has eight or nine people, Bai Yu's long-distance running preliminaries had seventeen or eighteen people in each group. It is said that the 10,000-meter preliminaries had even more people, with twenty or thirty people in each group.
However, the number of participants did not matter much to Bai Yu. In the 3,000-meter race, he maintained an absolute lead throughout the entire course.
The same was true for the 5,000-meter race in the afternoon session; he advanced as the top finisher in his group.
It wasn't until the 10,000-meter preliminary race on the morning of the third day that Bai Yu finally met his match.
Although the Universiade has the most participants in track and field events, those are other track and field events and have little to do with the 10,000-meter race.
According to information obtained by Coach Li, there were only three groups participating in the 10,000-meter race, and the finals were held directly after the preliminary rounds.
Bai Yu was in the second of the three groups. In the same group as him was a person named Li Yong, who was from Beijing Sport University and was also a member of the national team. He was a favorite to win the 10,000-meter race.
Bai Yu was in the same group as him in the preliminary rounds, and Bai Yu was overjoyed. He was excited before the competition even started.
The reason is simple: in the long-distance running event, he has no rivals in Hai Province. No one can make him exert his full strength, not even himself, because there is no pressure.
This time, Bai Yu encountered Li Yong, and he really hoped that Li Yong could put some pressure on him and force out some of his potential.
Based on the projects reported by the other party, barring any unforeseen circumstances, Bai Yu will meet with them at least twice during this Universiade.
One is 10,000 meters, and the other is 5,000 meters.
You have to admit, Li Yong truly lives up to his national team reputation; he's incredibly strong in the 10,000-meter event.
During the qualifiers, this guy followed Bai Yu the whole time, letting Bai Yu be his pacer the entire time. In the last few laps, he even tried to overtake Bai Yu several times, hoping to win first place in this group.
Unfortunately, the final result was not as expected. Bai Yu did not give him this chance, maintaining first place throughout the entire process until the end.
In the end, they ran a time of under 29 minutes, with a final time of 28 minutes and 32 seconds, just ten seconds away from the best time at the Universiade.
28.32 seconds—to be honest, this isn't Bai Yu's best time. He's run 28 minutes and a few seconds in training, which is why Coach Li is so confident in his long-distance running.
However, since this is a training result, it cannot be used as a competition result.
After the group stage of the 10,000-meter race, all three events he had registered for advanced to the next round. As for the other athletes from Ocean University, their results were mixed; some advanced successfully, while others were eliminated due to poor performance.
People's joys and sorrows are not shared. Bai Yu and others were happy to advance, but those who were eliminated had disappointment written all over their faces.
For example, Wang Xu, who was on good terms with Bai Yu and the others, cramped up during the competition, whether due to nervousness or something else. The final result was predictable.
Bai Yu and the others simply patted him on the shoulder to comfort him, without saying much else.
As time went by, the preliminary rounds and semi-finals of each event soon came to an end. Bai Yu naturally fought his way through the competition and made it to the finals in all three events.
On the sixth day, he will have two finals: the 3,000 meters in the morning and the 5,000 meters in the afternoon.
The number of participants in the 3,000-meter final was not large, with only eight athletes in total. However, among these eight, there were two national team athletes, and the others were from various provincial teams. Only Bai Yu represented Ocean University of China in the competition.
He was the only one not on the provincial team. When Bai Yu found out this, he was completely stunned. Why didn't anyone in Hai Province ask him to join the provincial team?
Actually, this can't be blamed on Hai Province, but on Bai Yu himself. People from Hai Province had contacted him, but he was out fishing at sea at the time, and there was no signal at sea.
Later, they contacted the track and field department of Ocean University, their class advisor, and Bai Yu himself. In the end, Bai Yu didn't take it seriously and never gave the provincial team a clear answer.
Bai Yu is also full of anticipation for the 3,000-meter final, as competing against top athletes is the most exciting thing.
Facing two national team athletes and five provincial team athletes, Bai Yu stood calmly on track four, quietly waiting for the starting gun signal.
On the side of the track, Wang Hai secured the best spot in the stands and set up the camera they had brought. They were going to record Bai Yu's entire race.
This camera was brought by Bai Yu and has now become the most important piece of equipment for the athletes from Ocean University. It not only records Bai Yu's competition, but also the competition of each member of the track and field team.
If the timing doesn't conflict, it can even be borrowed to record the competition process of other members of Ocean University.
With the eight athletes participating in the 3,000-meter final in position, Bai Yudu took off with a long stride after the starting gun fired.
Three thousand meters is seven and a half laps. For Bai Yu, this level of difficulty means he can maintain the same speed throughout the entire race. What he needs to do now is to take the lead and suppress the other seven runners throughout the race.
In national competitions like this, especially after reaching the finals, the gap between each contestant is actually not that large.
In situations like these, the outcome of each match depends on the players' performance.
Unfortunately, Bai Yu was in excellent form at the moment. After the starting gun fired, he was the first to move and successfully took the lead.
However, Bai Yu wasn't so kind as to be their pacesetter. After taking the lead, he was still trying to widen the gap between himself and the others.
After one lap, Bai Yu had increased the distance between herself and the seven people behind her by about five meters.
After two laps, the distance increased to ten meters, and after three laps, the distance decreased to five meters, but only two people shortened the distance.
After running six laps, there were only 600 meters left in the race. At this point, only one runner was still closely following Bai Yu, while the others were about ten meters behind.
As soon as he entered the seventh lap, Bai Yu immediately began his sprint. There wasn't much of the race left, and he was ready to take the initiative!
After all, the guy following him all the time was also a force to be reckoned with. In the first six laps, Bai Yu tried to disrupt his opponent's rhythm by accelerating and decelerating repeatedly, but the results were not very good.
This shows that this person is not only strong, but also very experienced, knowing how to deal with various accelerations and decelerations and maintain their own rhythm.
After seeing Bai Yu start sprinting ahead of him, Feng Qiang, who was currently in second place and also from Beijing Sport University, was stunned. He never expected that Bai Yu would start sprinting at this time, which was not normal.
Logically speaking, a 3,000-meter race consists of seven and a half laps, and the sprint should be in the last 200 meters. Why did Bai Yu start sprinting at 600 meters?
This is a whole lap ahead of the normal sprint. Could it be that Bai Yu misremembered the number of laps?
That's even more impossible. Everyone here is a finalist; how could they possibly make such a basic mistake as misremembering the lap number?
So now a question is facing Feng Qiang: Bai Yu is sprinting, should he follow or not?
If he follows, he might be overtaken by Bai Yu and then surpassed by the members behind him, since he might not be able to keep up with the 600-meter sprint.
If Bai Yu hadn't followed along, and had managed to finish the 600 meters, he would have missed out on the 3000-meter championship at this Universiade, but he would have easily secured the runner-up position.
How should I choose?
.............
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