The semi-finals were divided into 3 groups, and after the morning preliminaries, the number of people in the preparation area had plummeted at this point.
After completing the check-in preparation, Su Zhe took out a drink from his bag to supplement his physical fitness. Although the training at noon had warmed him up in advance, even though the amount of exercise for this pre-race training had been carefully calculated by Su Yinsheng, it would still cause some physical exertion, and he needed to use some energy supplements before the race.
Just when Su Zhe was dazed with his drink, Shota Shiraishi and Kanaki Takeshita also came to the preparation area.
Seeing their appearance, Su Zhe couldn’t help but recall the current comparison of the strength of the 100 meters between the two countries.
For the Asian Championship Invitational, Japan sent strong players, Shota Shiraishi’s personal strength was the highest, not only in this year’s season when he ran at 10 seconds 03, his personal pb, 10 seconds 01, was the most optimistic in Japan, at any time, he was one of the few people that could break the 10-second mark players.
Although Kanaki Takeshita didn’t qualify for the World Championships, he was also a strong runner who had run in 10:10. The other three Japanese runners in the race had all finished within 10:20 this season.
Although Japan’s current national record wasn’t as good as the 100m record set by Chen Zhi, but in the reserve of middle strength, it was much stronger than the domestic.
Just when Su Zhe was silently comparing the 100m strength gap between the two countries in his mind, Shota Shiraishi’s warm greeting interrupted Su Zhe’s thoughts.
The smiling young man with tiger teeth was greeting Su Zhe in half-baked Chinese that he seemed to have learned from the staff.
“Su, hello!”
Su Zhe smiled and also greeted Shota Shiraishi seriously, while nodding his head in greeting to Kanaki Takeshita.
It was just a simple greeting, and Shota Shiraishi also looked happy, but it was just a pity that he had very little Chinese vocabulary left, and it was difficult to piece together any more conversation.
Unlike the last preliminaries, this semifinal, Su Zhe finally met a strong opponent from Japan, Takeshita Kanmei, at the same time, another Japanese player Yamashita Shunsuke also ran into the semifinals, Su Zhe and Takeshita were in the same group.
In addition, the strong 100 meters from Iran’s Mossan also drew the second group of the semifinals where Su Zhe was.
Mossan’s pb so far was 10 seconds 06, although he hadn’t yet run into 10 seconds 10, but he also did a full preparation, with the same purpose as Su Zhe came to this invitational tournament.
[PB — personal best ]
If it came to individual historical achievements alone, Su Zhe couldn’t even rank in the top three in Group 2. If he wanted to run to the finals, he had to defeat these strong players with historical achievements above him… This tension and pressure that Su Zhe hadn’t yet experienced in domestic competitions gradually made him excited, and the emotions that were difficult to mobilize in the morning before the competition had gradually begun to burn at this moment.
In the preparation area, apart from Shota Shiraishi, there were no players who paid attention to Su Zhe. In the perception of more people at the scene, the only strong player in China at present was Chen Zhi, but this strong general who had been crushing them in various Asian tournaments was now injured, and the recovery period after surgery wasn’t yet determined.
Not to mention that Chen Zhi was now completely unrelated to the World Championships, according to his injury, it wasn’t even known whether there was a chance to rehabilitate before the start of the Olympics and run into the Olympic standard during the examination period.
Without Chen Zhi, China hadn’t even obtained the qualification to participate in the 100 meter World Championships, and reluctantly sent such a player who had never been seen before to participate in the Asian Championship Invitational. Could he replace Chen Zhi?
For Su Zhe’s strength, these players were still watching, but from their perception, they were still skeptical about Su Zhe’s strength.
Not to mention anything else, just from Su Zhe’s appearance… he really didn’t look like a sprinter at all. His body looked more like it was just for the sake of looks, and he was obviously more like an idol star than an athlete. Could that body have enough explosive power to compete with them? Was the strength of this physique sufficient to support his participation in the World Championships?
If it weren’t for Su Zhe’s success in the semifinals with a time of 10.16 seconds in the morning’s preliminaries, these players would even suspect how Su Zhe qualified for this competition.
Su Zhe felt their questioning glances but he didn’t care about it. The respect between athletes was based on the recognition of each other’s strength, he had already won everyone’s approval in the domestic competition with his ability, and he believed that this set of laws, in the international arena, also applied.
When Su Zhe took the stage, the semi-finals of the previous group had already ended, and Ishida Kazuhira was enthusiastically announcing the results of the semi-finals of the previous group and the advancement list.
On the other hand, many people in the stands suddenly let out enthusiastic shouts after seeing Su Zhe on the field.
“Su! Su!”
“Player Su, please continue to work hard in the semi-finals!”
“Ah ah ah, son, cheer up for the semi-finals, don’t stop rushing to the finals.”
The mixed cries of Japanese and Chinese caught the attention of many contestants, and Su Zhe naturally heard cheers from the stands. As he scanned towards the stands, he was surprised to find that it was only noon, yet the crowd gathered together in the morning to shout his name seemed to have expanded.
Many people became even more excited after seeing Su Zhe look up, waving what seemed to be improvised banners in their hands in an effort to gesture in the direction of where Su Zhe was.
The crowd in the stands erupted with more excited shouts after Su Zhe waved his hand to them in acknowledgement, causing more people to notice the interaction between the two sides as well.
In the commentary box, Kazuhira Ishida was introducing the second group of semi-finalists to the live audience. After introducing the strongest players in the second group of semi-finalists, Ishida focused the rest of his commentary on Su Zhe.
The heavy face control attributes of the people of Japan were also reflected in the body of Ishida Kazuhira, he unabashedly expressed his love for Su Zhe, the words of praise almost overflowing from the screen.
“I believe you have already seen, in this semi-final group 2 competition, located in the eighth track is our beautiful young player from China, Su Zhe! According to the official website of China, he was assigned to replace the contestant Chen after he was injured. Don’t underestimate Su’s strength because of his appearance! At present, he has already won the first place in the 100 meters in the track and field all championship within China, and in the preliminaries this morning, he also easily advanced to the semi-finals with the first place in the group!”
“It’s really exciting to see how …… he will run in the next semi-final group 2 race. You know, if player Su wants to squeeze into the final, he needs to run into the top 2 results in this group of death …… but before him, there are still Player Mossan from Iran and our players, Takeshita and Yamashita, in the way.”
“Will this beautiful snow leopard boy be able to tear apart the strong opponents standing in his way? Ah! Even as a commentator, my blood is boiling with anticipation now!”
In Ishida Kazuhira’s passionate commentary, the players on the field also completed their pre-game preparations, all of them crouched down on the track, the atmosphere on the field also froze instantly, the smell of smoke began to become thick.
The battle momentum, surged!
In the domestic Weibo pages and athletics kingdom forums, there were many concerned Su Zhe’s sports fans and philosophers also watched the live broadcast of the game.
Although they couldn’t understand the Japanese commentary, many track and field fans still recognized Su Zhe’s competitors on the field at once.
[Crap!!! How did Kanmei Takeshita, Mossan …… and that Japanese rookie Shunsuke Yamashita …… this is a death team!]
[Damn, these personal pb 10 seconds 09, 10 seconds 06 and 10 seconds 15 …… this semifinal is really great, he won’t enter the final, right?]
[Brother upstairs, shut up… Our personal lead for Boss Zhe is also 10.12 seconds, isn’t it better than that Yamashita? Takeshita’s form this year is also average, he hasn’t even made it to the World Championships? He hasn’t made it past 10.10 seconds this year, has he? Don’t let others’ morale ruin your own power]
[That’s the way it is said, but Boss Zhe’s condition this morning wasn’t good! Isn’t that worrying?]
Regardless of what kind of tense atmosphere the domestic forums and Weibo pages had fallen into, at this moment, Su Zhe, located in the eighth track, was confident that he had adjusted to a good enough state!
Two feet back and forth on the starter, everyone was waiting for the final instructions from the referee!
“All in position …… ready!”
“Bang!”
The crisp g*unshot cut through the sky.
At the moment the gu-n went off, Su Zhe’s legs exploded with power and stomped forward violently!
The game, it started!
The state of this game didn’t exceed his expectations, listening to the gun reaction remained in the usual normal state, 0.145 reaction speed, it was ranked third among all competitors.
Although the power burst at the moment of the start was lacking because of a small lack of physical fitness, Su Zhe did enough to be smooth in the subsequent process of starting and accelerating!
But this was worthy of the top Asian players gathered in the international arena. Although it was only a district semi-finals, Mossan and Takeshita were also strong players who had consistently made it to the finals of Asian level events.
Mossan’s reaction time to the g-un in this race was only 0.129 seconds, followed by Hiroaki Takeshita’s reaction time to the g-un at 0.137 seconds. Such a fast reaction determined their advantage in the starting phase and the acceleration stage within 30 meters.
When Su Zhe finished his start to acceleration articulation, Mossan was already in the leading position of the first group, his starting explosive power was extremely strong, among all the top Asian runners, it could be called first-class, even if Chen Zhi was in the race with him, it was difficult to catch up with Mo Sang before the middle stage.
Takeshita Kanaki’s acceleration phase was also very strong, and after he took the starting advantage of listening to the gun reaction, he perfectly seized the opportunity to bite dead behind Mossan, and was trying to improve his pace to catch up with Mossan even further.
Su Zhe was at this point in the acceleration phase with Takeshita Kanmei’s speed, but still slightly behind him by a thread, and behind him, also from Japan, Yamashita Shunsuke was also chasing forward!
This race, from before the start was destined to be a battle between the four of them, the remaining players were also gritting their teeth to keep up, but in this stage of the acceleration run, they were already a step behind from listening to the reaction speed of the g-un to the articulation of the start and acceleration, and there was little hope at this point.
As a teammate and junior of Shota Shiraishi, Kanmei Takeshita had always looked up to Shota Shiraishi as his idol in the 100m project. He admired Shota Shiraishi’s sprinting strength and was always trying to catch up with Shota Shiraishi as his target.
He had no great interest in the personal feelings of Shota Shiraishi, but after Shiraishi inexplicably declared his love for the Chinese runner, he kept praising the strength of that Chinese runner.
This was a completely irresponsible boast to Kanaki Takeshita, who was pursuing the sport of 100-meter sprint as his life’s faith, and it made him feel a strong anger in his heart.
He had built up a strong energy before the race, and his goal was to show Shiraishi-kun in this race whose strength should be praised, and not to influence the judgment of the sacred sport of sprinting because of personal feelings!
Takeshita Kanmei did what he expected before the race, at this time he only had one Iranian runner Mossan in front of him – the other was a player whose strength in the first half of the race was almost on par with the world’s best, but his explosive power could only be maintained to less than 60 meters of the stage, the next distance and the final sprint had been an important factor affecting Mossan’s final result.
Kanamine Takeshita was confident in his strength in the second half of the race and believed that he would be able to overtake Mossan in the second half of the race and take the first place in the second group of this semi-final!
Su Zhe didn’t think much after the start of the game, since the beginning of the game, he had put all his heart and soul into the control of his own rhythm, step frequency, stride length.
In the starting acceleration stage, although he had found himself a little behind, but this lag made Su Zhe feel more excited, he couldn’t help but reveal a sense of excitement in his eyes, a stronger desire to fight surged in his heart, but he still kept the string of reason in his brain, trying to control the rhythm of his movement, he couldn’t let himself get too excited or to catch up with the front and lose control of the rhythm of his own movement.
The lack of explosive power at the start made Su Zhe understand that he might not be able to achieve maximum acceleration kinetic energy in the first half of the race, but he could still continue the energy by virtue of the process from the start, acceleration to the en route run, and finally explode his full power in the final sprint stage!
At this point, every step he took made his body a little more excited, and the energy in his heart didn’t cool, but was more passionate under the stimulation of each evenly matched runner.
On the grandstand area, the philosophers who arrived at the scene needless to say, they were waving the flags in their hands with all their might, in cheering for Su Zhe.
And the Sakura girls beside them were likewise shouting and cheering for Su Zhe!
The figure running on the track, the resolute look on his face and the eager look on his face, completely ignited all the perfect fantasies of the athletes in their hearts.
[Ahhhhhh, Su, go for it!]
They put all their energy into cheering for Su Zhe, and at this moment, that figure was completely engraved into their hearts.
Then unpredictable changes happened, a Kazakhstan player, Akasov, originally just after Yamashita Shunsuke in the acceleration phase gradually overtook Yamashita Shunsuke, all the way close to Su Zhe, and even vaguely moved forward to overtake him!
At this time, including Mossan, everyone had entered the stage of the en route run, Mossan’s initial explosive power had been gradually exhausted, his subsequent lack of physical fitness, lack of endurance shortcomings began to appear, although he was still trying to maintain his speed, but the distance difference with the behind Takeshita Kuanming, Su Zhe and others had significantly weakened!
On the commentary stand, Kazuhira Ishida was also following the race nervously: “Oh! Mossan’s explosive power is exhausted, the next leg will be very tough for him, Takeshita’s advantage is improving, and player Su isn’t showing any weakness ……!”
The audience, including the Japanese and Chinese netizens who were watching the live broadcast, also noticed this sign.
On Athletics Kingdom, all the track and field fans who were watching the race nervously had already gotten their blood up, and they were nervously clenching their fists and waving their arms in front of their respective computers cheering for Su Zhe with their own opinions!
“Charge forward!!!”
Many people even couldn’t help but shout out cheers alone in front of their computers, just hoping that Su Zhe could charge forward fast, faster!
Su Zhe’s battle spirit also became stronger as he moved forward step after step, and he was biting down on Takeshita Kanmei who was almost in full burst, and the gap between the two and Mossan was closing fast.
Akasif, who was behind the front row for a short time, started to fall into a speed stalemate with Yamashita Shunsuke, but after another speed burst by the three-man group of Mossan, Takeshita Kanmei and Su Zhe, the gap between the two of them and the first group also gradually widened.
Mossan from Iran was already gritting his teeth at this moment, this Asian Championship Invitational, was almost the last chance before the performance assessment period of the World Championships, during the opening of this rematch, his state could be said to be very good, although he temporarily didn’t know his hearing g-un reaction speed, but with past experience, he believed his starting reaction should be within 0.13 seconds.
Even with his form, it wouldn’t be easy to get that kind of opening form in the race again.
But after the first 60 meters of the race, the heaviness of his legs broke out again, in an anaerobic state, the rapid flow of muscle strength made it difficult for him to maintain his high speed, even if he desperately gritted his teeth to hold on, but this physiological force majeure still made his heart sink ……
Not good, perhaps because he sprinted too hard in the starting burst and acceleration phase , although the first half of the race he gained more speed and advantage than ever, but the physical energy consumption was also far more than ever!
As he approached the 60-meter stage, the exhaustion and heaviness from the physical exertion came to him early, giving him a sluggishness that was visible to the naked eye.
But no ……
He couldn’t stop his speed here!
One more fight, he believed that his form in this one, as long as he could run his usual time in the sprint stage, he would be able to break into 10 seconds 10!
Mossan gritted his teeth and stared at the finish ahead, trying to control his rhythm and not let his speed decrease too much, he was completely holding on with his will.
Takeshita Kanaki had gradually caught up with Mossan, his physical exertion hadn’t yet reached its limit, but in the middle of the race after reaching the stage, he felt the control of his body further enhance.
This was his 100 meter technical characteristic. When some explosive athletes in the early stages ran through the first half of the race, they would face the challenge of catching up from him!
This advantageous ability to power up in the second half of the race was often the focus of breaking the rhythm of other players.
Like at this time because Mossan’s explosive power had been exhausted, and Takeshita was constantly approaching his back, in the face of the upcoming sprint, his pace appeared a little disordered.
Su Zhe at this time fell closely behind Takeshita, also in a strong will to push himself forward.
As he expected, the afternoon training did have a certain impact on his physical fitness, originally he could use deep sleep skills to slightly restore some physical fitness, but in order to prevent the originally warmed athletic state from going cold, he simply chose to drink sports drinks to replenish physical fitness, so as to retain his athletic state.
This choice wasn’t good or bad, Su Zhe just made the choice he thought was appropriate – for him, being able to make calm and suitable decisions bit by bit before the game was precisely because he gradually developed qualified pre match psychological performance with rich competition experience and stable psychological state.
At this moment on the field, Su Zhe’s mood was surging and enthusiastic. He felt the strong tension between his opponents in the middle of this match, and this mutual stalemate and check and balance made his heart boil.
He felt that he could become faster!
The moment this thought rose, he didn’t hesitate to speed up his pace. The gap between him and Takeshita Kanmei was originally only 1 body position, and in just a flash, he caught up with Takeshita who was only a short distance ahead of him.
Takeshita, who had only been focusing on Mossam, was stunned when he scanned Su Zhe’s acceleration.
That Su Zhe, he could still accelerate?
That guy, he was also a rear-range acceleration type!
This realization made Takeshita Kanmei’s heart flutter and he withdrew his attention that was only on Mossan.
The finish line was close at hand.
Mossan, Takeshita Kanmei and Su Zhe were almost neck and neck at this point, but in the next final sprint stage, Takeshita Kanmei and Su Zhe had powerful back-end acceleration ability to overtake Mossan, so Mossan, who was originally in first place, fell to the third row.
After noticing Su Zhe’s back-range acceleration ability, Takeshita also accelerated his pace in a flash, and the gap between them was indistinguishable to the naked eye, and from the stand’s perspective, no one could tell who was really dominating!
“The line is crossed! Finally, side by side, our Takeshita and Su from China are crossing the line!” On the commentary stage, Kazuhira Ishida excitedly announced the result: “Unbelievable, Takeshita and Su crossed the line at the same time, the difference between them is too small, next, the judges need to use the video at the finish line to determine who the final winner is!”
While waiting for the judge to pronounce the result, Kazuhira Ishida launched into another gushing praise of the whole race, while at the finish line of the race, both Takeshita Kanmei and Su Zhe finally came to a gradual stop after a buffer of the track after crossing the line.
Su Zhe smoothed his slightly sweaty hair to the back of his head, then straightened up with a cheerful smile. Regardless of the result, this race had progressed his mind to a new stage – keen on the race, pursuing victory, giving his all, expecting victory, but not being anxious and in denial about himself because of the result.
“I can do it.”
These were the words Su Zhe repeated to himself in his heart, this game was his first after opening his heart, and it also gave him he had a mental awareness and affirmation of his ability.
He was clearly able to feel the extent of his control over his current strength, and this feeling made him feel mentally grounded and relaxed.
Even if the result of today’s race wasn’t satisfactory, he had no fear for tomorrow’s final now that he had regained his form!
On the track, not far from him, Takeshita Kanmei was looking at him with a complex gaze, making Su Zhe confused, he couldn’t figure out why Takeshita would look at him with such a gaze.
A moment later, Takeshita took two steps forward, left a message, and then turned to leave.
After carefully recalling and distinguishing Takeshita’s English with Japanese pronunciation, Su Zhe understood that what he said was “you are an excellent opponent, you are very strong”.
Smiling and scratching his head, Su Zhe also turned around and headed for the exit lane, where the staff was already waiting and would announce the final results of each person.
On the commentary stand, Kazuhira Ishida had also got the final results of all the runners, and he announced with a sense of surprise: “The top three in Group 2 of the semi-finals are third place: Iran – Mossan 10 seconds 13 (0.4), second place: China – Su Zhe 10 seconds 11 (0.4), first place: Japan – Kanaki Takeshita 10 seconds 11 (0.4). ”
“After the video judgment, Takeshita player won by eight thousandths of a second! From our country, the warrior on the track, player Takeshita Kanaki, defeated the beautiful snow leopard boy and won the final victory of this group!”
In the stands at the scene, after the final results were announced, the philosophers and the newly-pinked Sakura girls on Su Zhe had a moment of loss for the results of the competition, but they then quickly perked up.
The girl who chased the cub to Japan firmly said, “The cub’s achievement is good enough, we shouldn’t lose heart, we should work harder to support him and cheer for him!”
“Yes!” One of the sakura girls also firmly clenched her fist, “Su has never given up on his fight, I can feel the bright light shining in him! Please keep supporting him!”
At the exit lane, Su Zhe suddenly heard a call from the back stands, and the moment he turned around, the philosophers in the stands and the Sakura girls with their accents gave him a full-throated cheer – “Su Zhe! Go for it!!! We’ll always support you!”
On the commentary stand, Kazuhira Ishida also saw the scene captured by the camera, and he couldn’t help but praise, “I felt his charm while running …… and of course, the powerful personal charm of our beautiful snow leopard boy from China.”
“In fact, even as a commentator, I can’t help but want to shout a cheer for player Su! He exploded on the field with a bright light that was able to attract everyone’s attention. Although he lost slightly in this semi-final match, how will he perform in the next match ……? Let’s look forward to Su’s performance in the final tomorrow!”
On the domestic network, the same track and field fans who were following the race, couldn’t help but be slightly disappointed.
10 seconds 11 …… He was only 0.01 seconds away!
But more track and field fans knew in their hearts that even a 0.01 second gap wasn’t so easy to cross. Su Zhe’s performance, was already very good, as long as he maintained good form, then the next final, there was hope!
The sprinting fans weren’t as calm as the athletics fans who were only aware of Su Zhe because of the hot search package and the topic of “S University College of Arts and Letters qualified for the World Championships”.
Most of them didn’t have a clear enough concept of the performance of the 100m sprint, but when they heard that Su Zhe had failed to qualify for the World Championships in the final round, they intuitively thought that he wasn’t quite good enough.
The more sensible of the crowd were simply discussing:
[Isn’t it a bit inappropriate to send Su Zhe to such an important qualification race?]
[Ah, my impression of him is still stuck in the previous exit from the entertainment industry, and when people said he should get out of the sports circle …… Yet he now suddenly participated in the Asian level championship invitational tournament, it is very confused ……]
[I also …… I see he seems to have won a domestic championship, but the World Championships challenge, isn’t the 100-meter sprint champion the one called Zhao Zhixuan? Why not send him to instead of Su Zhe?]
Just when the sports fans noticed that there were some problems with the public opinion on the internet and started to explain the difference between Su Zhe and Zhao Zhixuan’s current performance to the crowd, a group of anti-fans suddenly appeared on the internet from nowhere.
These people are jumping up and down, almost sparing no effort to discredit Su Zhe.
[Tsk, that Su Zhe, isn’t his father a famous domestic sprint coach? Zhao Zhixuan is his senior brother, right? So when you guys say there’s a competition opportunity, who exactly is this spot going to go to?]
[A guy who just turned to sports from the entertainment industry less than three months ago, in the blink of an eye has reached the top level …… but also undertook the mission of fighting for the glory of the country, to qualify for the World Championships …… tsk, it’s really too much!]
[Wow, a guy in the entertainment industry who no one even heard his name. If he goes back for sprint, he’ll be the national champion in two months. Maybe he’s a dope maniac, right? Don’t tell me about any inspections, maybe he used high-tech?]
A series of malicious comments came rushing in, and in the blink of an eye, the unwarranted rumors of Su Zhe was furiously rushed to the hot search list, making the masses and sports fans who were just quietly watching confused for a while.
It was already evening when Shao Xingchen saw these news, he looked at the lopsided comments on the internet and handed his cell phone to Li Cheng’s hand.
“What do you think about this ……?”
Slightly puzzled, Li Cheng quickly swept a glance at the posts on Weibo, eyebrows raised: “Tch, Ah Zhe already went to an athlete, is he blocking anyone’s way?”
Obviously, these tactics were pure black, at a glance, it was the usual tactics from within the entertainment industry.