Soon it was time for the competition day, the Diamond League final of the 5,000-meter event.
There were a total of twenty participants in this competition, including one Asian, four Caucasians, and fifteen Black people.
Yes, in long-distance running, or rather, in track and field, Black people are the absolute kings.
Even so, Bai Yu is determined to win this match today and add another gold medal to his Grand Slam journey; otherwise, how can he be called a Grand Slam champion?
Bai Yu's luck wasn't too good during the pre-race draw. His position was on the outer edge of the track. Out of twenty people, he drew number sixteen, which meant he was basically in lanes seven or eight.
However, it doesn't matter. For true powerhouses, the influence of the outer circle isn't particularly significant, and these are difficulties that can be overcome.
With everything ready, all the contestants were standing in their designated positions, and the referee had raised the starting gun. The competition could begin at any moment.
*Smack!*
With a bang of the starting gun, the 5,000-meter final of this Diamond League officially began!
At the moment the gun went off, Bai Yu did not rush out immediately, but instead ran with the crowd.
If this were a race in Asia, Bai Yu would never have done this. He would have taken the lead from the start and kept it until the end.
But that's not possible now. The dozen or so competitors around me are top-notch athletes in this field from around the world, especially the eight Kenyan athletes. They are a team, and the leading position won't be so easy to win.
After the competition began, the twenty contestants were divided into two groups: eight Kenyan contestants and two other black contestants were in the first group, and the remaining ten were in the second group.
There was a distance of about ten meters between the two sides. This distance was the distance between the last person in the first group and the first person in the second group.
The 5,000-meter race consists of 12 and a half laps. For the first six laps, Bai Yu stayed in the second group to minimize his presence.
After all, Bai Yu had advanced to the finals with the first place in the regular season, and in the eyes of outsiders, he was a top favorite to win the championship.
Now that Bai Yu is with the second group, the ten people in the first group, or more precisely, the eight people, can go and kill the other two.
Since the other two players are also ranked high on the leaderboard, and they are playing with the Kenyan team, won't they inevitably get crushed by the opposing team in turn?
By the seventh lap, Bai Yu had gradually blended into the leading group, which still consisted of ten people.
Bai Yu came up, but the number of people remained the same. Why is that?
Because one player was completely outmatched, he has fallen from the first tier to the second tier.
However, Bai Yu's current rise to the first echelon is not to be a target for others to bombard, but rather to prepare to devastate everyone.
In long-distance running, the best way to outpace others is to disrupt their rhythm by constantly accelerating. Once their rhythm is disrupted, they are not far from defeat.
After Bai Yu joined the first group, he accelerated all the way from tenth to first place, and continued to accelerate forward.
If this were someone who had just watched the game, they might think that the game had entered the final sprint and that Bai Yu was sprinting!
Bai Yu's actions not only baffled the audience at the venue and those watching on television, but also all the competitors on the field. They all had only one thought: 'It's not even the crucial stage yet, what's this yellow-skinned monkey doing?'
However, when they saw Bai Yu accelerate, he actually glanced back at them. Just that one glance was enough to make the second to fifth members of the first tier unable to tolerate it.
Isn't this blatant provocation? When did these yellow-skinned monkeys become so arrogant in this project? Even if you're the first in the regular season, it's not allowed!
Then the Kenyan athletes ranked second to fifth immediately began to accelerate their pursuit.
This is really confusing for the contestants ranked sixth to tenth. After all, they didn't see Bai Yu turn around, and they don't know if Bai Yu provoked them. They only saw the top five speeding up!
As top-tier contestants, they are all aiming for the top three. Since the top five have accelerated, they have no reason not to, otherwise they will have to say goodbye to the top three.
Then, a scene that would never normally occur appeared on the track and field: an Asian man was ahead of all the Black men and took the lead.
The last time such a scene occurred was a few years ago, when Liu was leading everyone in sprinting events.
In long-distance running, this is the first time that a person of Asian descent has been in the lead after the halfway point of the race.
When Bai Yu saw that the group of guys behind him had caught up, he decided not to be polite and accelerated again, sprinting away at full speed.
After accelerating for a while, he suddenly slowed down after completing one lap. The runners behind him didn't have the option to brake suddenly.
Then Bai Yu watched as several Kenyan runners passed him and took the lead before slowing down.
But as soon as these people slowed down, Bai Yu rushed up from behind again, took the lead again, and accelerated.
This is the downside of participating in a major competition alone; if you want to outperform others, you can only rely on yourself, and no one can help you.
Fortunately, Bai Yu's physical condition is now far superior to what it used to be. In terms of endurance, he is definitely at the world's top level.
When the runners behind saw Bai Yu rush out again, they were all stunned. Who runs like this in a long-distance race? Speeding up and down all the time? Are you kidding me?
This constant adding and subtracting is unbearable for anyone!
At this point, the players began to suspect that Bai Yu was deliberately trying to disrupt their rhythm, since judging from the situation on the field, Bai Yu's chances of winning alone were really slim.
Even though he was first in the regular season, that was only because they didn't give it their all.
But this is the final, and victory or defeat hinges on this moment. If they make even the slightest misjudgment and Bai Yu manages to take them down with him, they will suffer a huge loss.
Therefore, after careful consideration, only four people from the group behind Bai Yu rushed out and caught up with Bai Yu's pace, speeding up again.
It's worth mentioning that all four athletes were wearing the same outfits, which means they came from the same country—Kenya.
These people were both afraid that Bai Yu would try to trick them and perish together, and also afraid that Bai Yu was truly capable and could finish the remaining laps in a leading position.
Therefore, the Kenyan runners on the field split into two groups. One group followed Bai Yu to maintain the lead, while the remaining four maintained their own pace and continued running at their own pace.
At this moment, Bai Yu was the most composed person on the entire field. He even had time to look back and see how many people had followed.
Upon seeing that there were four people, a slight smile appeared on his lips, and he accelerated once again, charging forward as if disregarding the consequences.
The four runners behind him were completely dumbfounded. If they could speak Chinese, they would definitely point at Bai Yu's back and start cursing. Isn't this just plain crazy? Who speeds up after the halfway point of a long-distance race? Does he really not care about his ranking in this race?
Unfortunately, considering his own aura, even if he wanted to curse, he couldn't speak, otherwise his aura would be completely disrupted.
The four of them then charged after Bai Yu again, and their charge immediately gave the audience a thrilling experience.
Eighty to ninety percent of the spectators who came to watch the competition were track and field fans who had been watching for many years. This was the first time they had ever seen someone run the 5,000 meters like that, overtaking and accelerating time and time again.
And the one leading the pack is an Asian person, which is truly incredible!
Two more laps passed, and Bai Yu's speed had slowed down to a normal level. But now there was no one behind him, not a single one. The closest group of competitors was already forty or fifty meters behind him.
And this was only the tenth lap; there were still three and a half laps, or 1,400 meters, to go.
In just 3,600 meters, Bai Yu had gained a lead of 40 to 50 meters, and it was a lead that was in a class of its own.
Behind him were five people: four Kenyans and one black man from another country. The four people who were originally following Bai Yu had been completely outmatched by Bai Yu and were now in the fourth group, at the very back.
Because these few fell to the back, it served as a warning to the remaining contestants: this Asian man was truly powerful; he didn't simply want to take them down with him, but had the ability to crush them.
After the tenth lap, the gap between the two runners had not narrowed; in fact, it had widened further, now amounting to almost a straight-line difference.
After the eleventh lap, the gap between the two runners had narrowed, returning to around fifty meters.
However, as Bai Yu began his twelfth lap, the situation on the track changed once again. Bai Yu accelerated again, this time not to overtake anyone, but to truly sprint.
He had already started sprinting with 600 meters left!
As Bai Yu began to accelerate, the contestants in the second tier couldn't resist any longer. Whether they could surpass Bai Yu and win the championship depended on this.
If we don't chase them now, they might really never catch up!
Amid the cheers of the audience, every athlete who had a chance to win the championship chose to accelerate at the same time, regardless of whether the distance was their strength or not. If they didn't sprint now, they would never have another chance.
Unfortunately, Bai Yu still had energy left. Faced with the relentless pursuit of the contestants behind him, he really wanted to turn around and shout: "Don't come any closer!"
During the sprint, Bai Yu gave no chance to the runners behind him. When he was a dozen meters away from the finish line, he had time to look back, then raised his hands above his head and crossed the finish line with a vertical "I".
It is said that, according to some enthusiasts after the race, Bai Yu turned around a total of 22 times during the 5,000-meter final, which proved his absolute strength in the event.
As for Bai Yu's final finishing time, it was 12 minutes and 21.36 seconds, setting a new world record for the 5,000 meters.
Moreover, due to the pressure Bai Yu put on the other contestants, another contestant also broke the record in this competition. However, Bai Yu's record was over ten seconds, while the other contestant's was only a fraction of a second.
In other words, Bai Yu won the 5,000-meter championship in this league with a time more than ten seconds ahead of the second place!
After Bai Yu crossed the finish line, Coach Li and Wang Hai immediately rushed over and handed Bai Yu a national flag. Bai Yu took the flag, unfolded it, and strolled around the track.
Unfortunately, this Diamond League isn't the World Championships or the World Athletics Championships; it's just about individual rankings. Otherwise, Bai Yu would definitely have run a few laps around the track draped in the national flag.
Let the thousands of spectators here see that in track and field, our people are still awesome!
As the first Asian to win the league title and a new world record holder, Bai Yu enjoyed the cheers of the audience and celebrated his own glorious moment.
At the same time, the moment Bai Yu won the championship, a piece of good news belonging to the yellow race spread across Asia at an extremely fast speed, and countries across Asia were vying to report on the matter.
The last person to have this kind of impact was Liu Xiang, the hurdler, who won the championship in the hurdles.
Although Bai Yu's victory this time cannot compare to that of Liu Jingfei, the sprinter, his influence is still considerable, especially with the new record he set.
Unfortunately, while this news spread extremely quickly across Asia, it couldn't compare to the gossip surrounding certain popular celebrities in China.
Even though Bai Yu is the first male athlete in China to win a world championship in this event and break the record, he still can't beat the news of a popular celebrity's suspected relationship being exposed.
Even after Bai Yu stepped onto the podium and left the arena with his prize, news about him still didn't make it to the top of the trending topics.
Subsequently, Bai Yu, led by the event organizers and accompanied by our coach and team leader, went to the sampling site to have his urine and blood collected.
There's no way around it; Bai Yu, being of Asian descent, has achieved such outstanding results in this competition. Compared to his last participation in a world-class competition, his progress has been far too rapid.
Therefore, it was reasonable for the event organizers to take some routine samples from him. Bai Yu also kept some samples and gave them to his team leader.
To be honest, Bai Yu doesn't have a good impression of these foreigners. They only target our family members, so keeping an extra sample is a must.
After receiving their awards, they took their belongings and left the competition venue alone, heading straight to the airport to buy tickets to return home.
...........
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