C19- 110 Hurdles Qualifiers?

Bonus Chapter: Thanks for the kofi, Rhavaniel

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Su Zhe turned his head and saw an athlete who was about 195 meters in height, wearing a black training suit, with long and strong hands and feet, and in a crowd of hurdlers, his appearance also looked very outstanding.

His mind turned over the list of hurdlers prepared for him by Zhou Hongzhi, and quickly turned up the name of this athlete – Zhou Tianjue.

At that time, seeing this name, Su Zhe was stunned, this kind of heavenly cool king name was actually real? Hearing it, Su Zhe simply thought he was playing a Mary Sue campus drama female lead ……

This terrible thought made Su Zhe shake, he quickly shook the unreliable thought out of his mind.

This was a young hurdler, only 19 years old this year. He studied under Lu Fei, a famous 110-meter hurdler in China. He was a good prospect selected by Lu Fei personally from B City Sports School. In his youth, he had participated in the National Junior Athletics Championships, Asian Junior Athletics Championships, and other major competitions, and ran in the Asian Junior Championships in 13.60 seconds and won the silver medal in the 110-meter hurdles.

However, since this year, due to the official transfer to the adult group, the height of the hurdles in the competition was changed from 0.99m to 1.067m, which made Zhou Tianjue face a series of technical adjustments and adaptation period, and the number of appearances in this year’s season was limited, but he was still judged by the domestic track and field fans as one of the most anticipated young athletes, and in his limited two appearances this year, he ran within 14:30.

After the retirement of the previous generation of 110m hurdles kings cultivated by Lu Fei, there was a clear fault line in the 110m hurdles in China, and the emergence of Zhou Tianjue was a kind of strong medicine for the domestic track and field fans.

Su Zhe finished reviewing all of Zhou Tianjue’s information and once again scanned this teenager, who was 1 year younger than him, seriously. According to the information collected by Zhou Hongzhi, Zhou Tianjue had actually run into 14 seconds many times in training, with the best time being around 13:58. This performance had surpassed most of the current veterans of the 110m hurdles.

The real ambition of Lu Fei and Zhou Tianjue should be on the challenge of the World Championships, and the qualifiers of the National Championships and even the National Championships later on should be the training ground prepared by Lu Fei for Zhou Tianjue.

This was a truly formidable enemy, but also an overly proud one.
　　
　　Su Zhe looked at Zhou Tianjue and nodded towards him with a smile.

“Can I cross the hurdle frame, when I run a little later, you’ll see.”

110m hurdles used to be a strong project in the domestic sprint and short hurdles, and even once dominated the world record of 110m hurdles, so there had been many athletes practicing 110m hurdles in China, which was the charm and attraction of the strong project.

Because of this, the 110m hurdles preliminaries in the afternoon, although the competition was in 3 places, it had a total of 87 participants, more than the morning 100m sprint with 18 people.

The hot and humid weather made the athletes on the spot a bit irritated, and many of them took off their sportswear outside their training clothes in the preparation area in advance to make themselves feel cooler.

The humid and sultry weather in G city was also far more than Su Zhe’s imagination, he came to G city these two days and was mostly unable to adapt to the climate and humidity here.

Seeing the athletes remove their jackets, Su Zhe also simply took off his T-shirt in the preparation area, revealing the tight black training clothes undershirt and training pants worn in the lining.

No one noticed that not far from the stands, there was a row of girls covering their mouths in a silent scream, the only girl manipulating the live-stream simply couldn’t control her trembling hands!

Ahhhhh!

What were they seeing?

The cub’s live undressing benefits ah ah ah!

The live-stream had already gone crazy, licking the screen messages and shouting with shaky hands.

[Being an athlete is really good, it’s great! It was really a wise choice!]

[I have quickly screenshotted …… cub, mama’s heart has been dirty …… cub, how are you so beautiful ……]

[I’m really stupid, really, I didn’t buy tickets to the full tournament, but I would have immediately flown straight to G city …… such a beautiful scenery, I can only hold my phone and weep ……]

At this moment, all the philosophers’ brains had the same thought – what’s good about the entertainment industry? Long live the sports industry QvQ!!!

In the afternoon qualifier, Su Zhe was programmed to compete in the 5th group, when he got and finished entering the grouping information to the staff, Zhou Tianjue happened to also go to the same staff to enter his information.
　

“Yo, sheep, you are also in the 5th group? Good luck with your run.”

With a frivolous voice, just like a little rascal, he finished snickering and walked away, looking like an overly proud, immature child who hadn’t yet learned to respect others.

In his heart, the 110m hurdles qualifier for the National Championships didn’t have competition, it was in his hands.

Su Zhe just frowned slightly and continued warming up to relax his body.

Since the start of Group 1, the qualifying rounds had progressed very quickly, with most of these young runners finishing within 15 seconds of each other, but still some distance from the 14-second barrier, with the best time on the course so far being 14:29 run by a young runner from province H.

After these two weeks of adaptive practice in reality, the system requirement of 14:30 had long been unable to make things difficult for Su Zhe. But his goal wasn’t only 14:30 ……

Thinking about this, Su Zhe looked back at Zhou Tianjue who was still talking and laughing with people, and then smiled slightly – he wanted to try the results of his extreme extra training since this time.

In that case, let’s see, who was the real sheep!

Soon, the first 4 groups had all finished, and the athletes of group 5 entered in unison, and all the athletes started a short trial run on the track for adaptation.

Both Zhou Tianjue and Su Zhe, who were located on track 4 and track 6, simply patted their thigh and calf muscles in front of their starters to get their bodies into a more relaxed state.

In the stands, in addition to Su Zhe’s fans, there were also some local track and field fans from the city of G. Many of them were supporters of Zhou Tianjue, who came this time to witness Zhou Tianjue step into the All Championships.

These track and field fans were curious when they first saw a group of young girls chattering together, but soon they remembered the identity of the girls – these were Su Zhe’s fans!

As track and field fans, how could they not know about Su Zhe, who was now the talk of the town? The crowd couldn’t help but also start discussing this qualifier, how Su Zhe’s 110m hurdles performance would really be.

“Let’s not talk about anything else.” One of the young men said: “You see the field, 8 runners, the only low ground in the middle is him. Zhou Tianjue’s height is 195, and his leg length is over 110, how is this natural gap going to be bridged?”

　　　”Men should look like our brother Tianjue, tall and handsome, excellent proportions, strong muscles, how good is this? How come all the little girls like Su Zhe like that?” Another flat-headed man looked puzzled.

“There are so many little girls that came to see him, I hope he won’t lose too badly, otherwise I’m afraid these little girls will cry.” A middle-aged uncle looked at the side of Su Zhe fans, simply with the concern of an old father.

“Tch, he can properly run 100 meters, yet he came to try the 100m hurdles competiton?” A young man with a disdainful expression seemed to have a problem with Su Zhe’s part-time participation, and at the end, he also skimmed his mouth and said, “You guys, he won’t hit the bar head-on and kneel in the first hurdle frame later, right?”

During the conversation of the crowd in the stands, the runners on the field were already ready for the race.

Everyone was already at the starters and ready to go.

“Take your places! Prepare -”

All the runners took the ready position – “Bang!”

The gun went off, and all the runners quickly burst into power and ran forward from the starters!

8 tracks, 8 figures in the short, less than 14 meters before the hurdles track, because of the existence of the hurdle frame, hurdlers needed to accelerate after the start quickly raise their body weight, in order to face the next difficult point between the hurdles run.

In this short 14-meter track, Su Zhe’s speed wasn’t weak, but the advantage was not obvious, surrounded by a group of tall hurdlers made him look extra petite, he looked as if he was a junior in the group of players.

Before the short run in front of the hurdles was about to end, Su Zhe was slightly behind Zhou Tianjue on the 4th track with a slight disadvantage, while from the spectator’s point of view, it was clear that Zhou Tianjue still had strength lef.

In front of the first hurdle, Su Zhe’s stride was closed, his starting leg stomped hard, the other leg started to swing forward, his upper body was pressed down, his arm was bent forward at the elbow, and he attacked the first hurdle.

His starting leg stirrups was strong and powerful, the body from the stirrups to the series of rhythm of the air were extraordinarily easy and comfortable, the whole process of crossing the first hurdle was like flowing water, his body didn’t have any position touching the hurdle, not to mention the problem of hitting the bar.

On the contrary, a player on the 8th track made a technical mistake when crossing the first hurdle, and his whole body jumped to the back of the hurdle and fell forward in a forward roll.

The sudden accident caused some commotion on the field, some of the players’ state was obviously affected by the 8th track player’s mistake, and they couldn’t help but close their own movements.

Su Zhe’s spirit was not shaken by any external movements, he crossed the first column, quickly moved in the column three steps forward, and quickly after a short step up again, crossed the second column!

On track 6, although Zhou Tianjue wasn’t nervous because of the mistake of the athlete on track 8, he was still slightly distracted by it, and he quickly sensed that someone around him was keeping up with his rhythm of attacking the hurdles, and was attacking the hurdles forward across the hurdles quickly.

Who was it?

There was someone in the 5th group who could keep up with his rhythm?

Zhou Tianjue’s heart was amazed, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a blindingly white figure – the little sheep? How could that be?
　　
　　The heart of doubt made Zhou Tianjue’s rhythm between the hurdles slightly chaotic, in the 5th hurdle, his left foot slightly hit the hurdle, again affecting the rhythm of his subsequent movements. He watched as Su Zhe, who was slightly behind him, maintained a steady and smooth rhythm of speed and kept moving forward!

How could this be?

How was this possible?

Zhou Tianjue stared with both eyes and began to boost his speed, but the sudden speed boost changed his original rhythm of attacking the bar again, and in the next attacking bar movement, there was 1 more hitting bar movement.

“How is it possible?!”

In the stands, the track and field fans of G city watched dumbfounded at the change of storm on the field, Zhou Tianjue, who was originally thought to be in the first place, unexpectedly fell behind, and the one running in front of him was no other than Su Zhe, who was mocked by the track and field industry for being nonchalant!

“What a smooth movement!” The middle-aged man who was not optimistic about Su Zhe initially now stared at Su Zhe’s attacking action and stood up excitedly: “His rhythm between the hurdles is very steady, even steady in the acceleration!”

The eyes of the track and field fans and “philosophers” in the stands were fixed on the field, when Su Zhe had already crossed the 9th hurdle on the track and was about to attack the final hurdle.

Zhou Tianjue was worthy of being Lu Fei’s personally carefully trained disciple, after a short period of rhythm disorder, he quickly adjusted his rhythm of attacking the hurdles, and soon caught up with Su Zhe’s speed again between the hurdles, and the two almost simultaneously broke the tenth hurdle.

At this time, Su Zhe and Zhou Tianjue’s figures had been separated from the rear of the players by a distance of about two hurdles!

In the front, Su Zhe and Zhou Tianjue had already entered the final sprint stage!

Su Zhe’s amazing post-race acceleration ability was once again reflected to the fullest, as he raced forward, his athletic figure deeply burned into Zhou Tianjue’s mind.

He desperately sprinted forward in an attempt to pass this figure until the finish line, when he and Su Zhe crossed the finish line almost back and forth.

During the buffering process after crossing the line, Zhou Tianjue reluctantly looked back at the electronic timer that recorded the runners’ results, and the timer with red letters on a black background clearly recorded both of their times.

Zhou Tianjue – 14:07.

Su Zhe – 14.05 seconds.

A mere 0.02 seconds was the difference between the first and second.

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TN:

Let it be known, Hurdling terminologies almost killed me 💀.