Bonus Chap
Thanks for the ko-fi ✨✨ Ko-fi Supporter ✨✨ and Merry Christmas in advance to everyone
Early the next morning, when Su Zhe came to the training ground, he found that the machines and track layouts for today’s live seemed to be exaggerated a few more points than usual.
The director in charge of the track and field team’s training documentary, He Chao, known as Big Head He, could see Su Zhe’s confusion, and he smilingly pointed down to the machine beside him, “Today is the first day of your training with the relay team, so of course we have to focus on filming it!”
Su Zhe nodded understandingly and didn’t say anything more, but turned to the side to start the day’s warm-up training.
Inside the live broadcasting room, there were already quite a number of onlookers, track and field enthusiasts, and “philosophers” holding their positions, just waiting to see how Su Zhe and his teammates’ training would be effective today.
In the girls’ dormitory of A university, Ding Yuwei squatted in front of her desk with a pillow in her arms, looking at her computer screen slightly nervously. Her roommate had gotten used to her squatting in front of the computer early in the morning.
The girl on the opposite side of Ding Yuwei’s bunk was slightly curious as she lay on the edge of her bed and looked at her computer: “Xiao Wei, is your Su Zhe really that good? This early in the morning, without classes, you got up so early to stare at the live broadcast ah?”
Hearing her roommate’s question, Ding Yuwei nervously stared at the live broadcast on the one hand, and on the other hand, she couldn’t help but feel the peace of mind that was burning in her chest, and began to chatter to her roommate about how good her cub really was.
Inside the bedroom of a suite in a neighborhood in a certain city, Huang Wenye was also staring at the live broadcast screen on his computer, watching Su Zhe’s warm-up movements, with a slightly expectant and uncertain expression on his face.
He was very surprised by the results of Su Zhe’s training the day before, but with only one day of training, should he place his trust in Su Zhe and create expectations for him that might exceed the results?
At the same time, he hoped that Su Zhe would be able to lead his teammates to an excellent relay performance as everyone wished, but he was also worried that the expectation he had would be paid wrongly.
This kind of emotion was running back and forth in the hearts of many track and field fans who were concerned about the relay run, with mixed feelings.
In the forum of the track and field kingdom, another post was quietly topped to the first place.
[Poll post – Can Tiger Su win this amazing gamble?]
The information personified in this post was clearly the comment posted by Mr. Tao Sheng on Weibo the day before regarding Su Zhe’s temporary addition to relay running training.
The statement of a shocking gamble was recognized by most people inside the sports circle at the same time.
After all, putting a sprinter with no experience in relay running into a national level relay team and defining him by the standards of the team’s core.
If the coach who did this wasn’t Su Yinsheng, and the team member wasn’t Su Zhe who had continuously proven himself through various competitions during this period… then this incident was likely to have exploded among netizens long ago. How could there still be a situation where positive public opinion still dominated?
With Su Zhe’s amazing baton passing and catching ability on display yesterday, the scales of victory seem to be tilting in Su Yinsheng’s direction,……, but who knew the true outcome?
Wei Liang, the director responsible for the live broadcast, held a cigarette early this morning and pulled the technicians to squat by the live broadcast machine, while letting the technicians pay attention not to cause the live broadcast to crash and disconnect due to the problem of overload.
Facts proved that Wei Liang was indeed quite prescient.
The news of Su Zhe joining the relay team, after the reversal of the whole day yesterday, spread farther and farther in the network fermentation.
From the start of the broadcast in the morning, the live broadcast room was flooded with viewers one after another, and just around 10:00 am, the number of people in the live broadcast room had already reached 70% of the usual peak hours.
The staff on the side asked with some curiosity, “Say, Brother Liang, Coach Su doesn’t mind live broadcasting something with such a high level of uncertainty like the first day of the relay team’s joint practice? There are so many people entering the live broadcast room right now, in case if the practice is not ideal, wouldn’t the impact not be too good?”
Wei Liang laughed when he heard this, “Alright, you worry more than other coaches. If the first day of training can produce the best results, then they wouldn’t call it training, they would call it a debriefing test! I’ve asked Coach Su about this, in fact, think about it and understand, Su Zhe’s last-minute entry into the relay team training yesterday was the biggest explosive point in public opinion. Yesterday’s live broadcast was already broadcasted, so what are you afraid of today?”
When Su Zhe, Meng Hao, Zhao Zhixuan, and Wang Ming all completed their warm-up training one after another, on the track, the coaching team had long ago drawn the starting marking line for each team member according to the data records between them.
After Meng Hao and Su Zhe had redrawn the starting line, under Su Yinsheng’s instructions, they finally let go of their speed completely and attempted to practice passing and receiving the baton at full speed.
This time, Su Yinsheng was on the sidelines, and didn’t open his mouth to give Su Zhe any further instructions on what he should pay attention to, he just watched Su Zhe complete his self-adjustment time and time again during the baton passing and catching process in only three times.
During these three practices, Su Zhe began to continuously improve his timing of starting based on his observation of Meng Hao’s speed, from a state that would affect the speed of both sides in the beginning, to the third time when he quickly seized the right moment to achieve a relatively high-quality baton passing and catching maneuver.
Zhang Ye watched Su Zhe’s self-regulation process from the sidelines and couldn’t help but let out a gasp, “Old Su, Zhe this …… is really something!”
For athletes, their physical talent was of course crucial, but in terms of observation and learning abilities, there was also a certain demand. For coaches, it was about the athlete’s “intelligence”.
After all, as an athlete, if you wanted to have the strength to continue to grow, you needed to make continuous improvement of your skills, this process required coaches and athletes to work together.
If an athlete was only able to adapt to their most comfortable sports state, and it was difficult for them to complete the learning and adaptation of new technologies, then it would be difficult to break through their own performance and bottlenecks, and ultimately they may miss their best performance during the explosive period, and ultimately fall into mediocrity.
On the screen of the live broadcast room, track and field fans watched Su Zhe and Meng Hao’s baton passing and catching practice, the crowd’s interest got even higher.
[Crap, boss Zhe can do it, this is full speed practice, right? It doesn’t look any worse than yesterday’s!]
【Can ah …… truthfully, last night I worried all night, worrying that their training state might not be as good as yesterday.]
[When will they start practicing together? I feel that the passing of the baton is already very good now!]
Right in the middle of the crowd’s anticipation, Su Yinsheng signaled the 4 tentative members of the relay team to gather.
“The baton passing practice is done, in 5 minutes, the first joint practice will begin.”
Not only the spectators, but the members of the relay team were likewise looking forward to the effect of this combined practice – the poor training in the previous week was actually detrimental to the confidence of the athletes themselves.
It was important to realize that the repeated changes in the status of members during training, the drastic ups and downs in performance, and the lack of motivation from the core members were all fatal factors affecting the status of the entire relay running team.
“Xiao Zhe, cheer up!” Before the joint practice was about to begin, Wang Ming patted Su Zhe’s shoulder.
Su Zhe returned a serious smile, “Cheer together! Don’t worry Brother Wang, we can do it!”
On the track, the temporary combination members of the relay team were all in place, and Qiu Xinchu and a few others had temporarily stopped their training to watch Su Zhe’s first joint practice with the coaching team on the sidelines.
There was a hint of nervousness and seriousness on everyone’s faces.
Zhang Ye acted as the referee for this joint practice, and after all the players had been confirmed, Zhang Ye gave the order to get ready and the joint practice began!
“Bang!”
The starting g.un sounded, Zhao Zhixuan quickly stomped out of the starter, his strong explosive force made him accelerate forward quickly, as the first stick of the relay run, he was located in the curved area of the start, which made him not only need to have strong explosive force at the start, but he also needed to be able to adjust and control his own body in time, in the process of accelerating at the start, so he wouldn’t run out of his own race track because of the inertia of the curved area.
In the relay team of the provincial sports team, Zhao Zhixuan was also the best first runner trained by Su Yinsheng, and he had a strong control of his corner starting skills.
From the start to the acceleration into the bend, Zhao Zhixuan’s entire start was a great mastery of his cornering technique!
Zhao Zhixuan’s entire start was very smooth. As he was approaching the second pole area, Wang Ming was already in a good starting position while observing the markers from below, and when Zhao Zhixuan reached the markers, Wang Ming was decisive to quickly start and accelerate in the pre-runner’s area.
In previous races, Wang Ming had already entered the relay team to replace Chen Zhi’s second baton position. In training and races, Wang Ming and Zhao Zhixuan had already reached a certain tacit understanding in the first and second baton handover.
Both sides were moving at full speed!
After Wang Ming entered the relay area, Zhao Zhixuan also gradually approached Wang Ming!
When the distance between them reached about 1 meter, Zhao Zhixuan shouted decisively from behind, “Wang Ming!”
Wang Ming’s left hand quickly extended backward, making preparations to catch the baton.
“Catch!”
While Zhao Zhixuan was speaking, he turned his wrist and quickly pressed the baton downward into Wang Ming’s hand, and the two of them finished passing the baton at a position of about 17 meters in the relay area, followed by Wang Ming continuing to sprint forward with all his might.
The second member of the baton was located in the straight area, for Wang Ming, all he needed to do was to keep running forward, try to maintain his highest speed to finish the second course, and at the same time, complete the baton handover with Meng Hao in front of him.
Although Wang Ming’s strength was considered to be downstream among the four members of the relay team, as an experienced and diligent veteran, his experience and speed endurance could be considered to be his biggest advantage.
After accelerating in the pre-run area, Wang Ming could ensure that he could maintain a relatively fast straight speed, and from the baton receiving area to the handover with the third baton, although he might not be able to accomplish the task of pulling away from the other teams, he could ensure that he could link up the whole team’s operation with his own stable condition.
Inside the live broadcast room, everyone was nervously watching this joint practice, and after seeing Zhao Zhixuan of the first baton and Wang Ming of the second baton smoothly passing the baton, many people gave their affirmative support.
[Old Wang can do it!]
[Not bad, the passing of the baton between the first and second batons was smooth!]
Soon, Wang Ming entered the area where the second and third batons were passed.
Meng Hao had also long been concentrating on getting ready.
As a matter of fact, the adjustments to this team had been quite difficult for Meng Hao as well.
Prior to this training, Meng Hao had been taking the fourth baton position in the Athletics National Team’s relay team, and all he needed to pay attention to was to sprint towards the finish line with all his strength after receiving the third baton’s pass.
However, whether it was the combination of Wang Qin and Qiu Xinchu, or the current Su Zhe, none of them were suitable for the third baton, and in the end, it had to be Meng Hao who switched from being the fourth baton to being the third member of the team, completing the entire task of passing the baton and running around the bend.
“Meng Hao!”
“Catch!”
Although Wang Ming and Meng Hao hadn’t previously completed baton passing and catching, the two had practiced a great deal of baton passing and catching during the previous week of training in order to enhance their tacit understanding.
The effect of this practice was also shown smoothly at this time!
The passing of the baton between Meng Hao and Wang Ming proceeded very smoothly, and their steadiness as veterans was enough to give people a sense of security during the second and third batons!
The third baton was a huge curve run, but it wasn’t a difficult one for Meng Hao, who had trained for the 200 meters on the side.
In order to counteract the centripetal force of the curve run, Meng Hao tilted his body slightly inward as he ran, and at the same time, in order to have complete control of his body on the curve, Meng Hao didn’t go all out for the sprint, but instead slightly reined in his own speed a bit.
But even so, with Meng Hao’s strength on the curve, he still ran out an extremely excellent result!
“It’s about to be time for the third and fourth baton passes ……,” Zhang Ye stood beside Su Yinsheng, and his eyes, along with those of Wang Qin, Qiu Xinchu, and the others around him, were glued to the field: ”Meng Hao’s speed on the curves is very okay, so let him run the third baton! Plus having Su Zhe’s final sprint …… might have an unexpected effect in the race afterward!”
There had always been a default ground rule in the arrangement of the members of each baton in a relay run, with the four baton members following the tiers of strength that tended to be: second, third, fourth, and strongest.
From this theoretical point of view, Meng Hao’s position should not be in the third baton, but in the actual arrangement of relay running teams, the coaching staff would still consider various comprehensive factors before finally clarifying the arrangement of the athletes.
As Meng Hao’s bend was coming to an end and gradually approaching Su Zhe, Zhang Ye stopped speaking, and everyone was fully focused on Su Zhe, who was waiting for Meng Hao in the pre-run area – the passing of the baton between the two of them was the key node of the combined practice!
Inside the pre-run area, Su Zhe was concentrating all of his energy, waiting for the moment when Meng Hao appeared at the starting mark!
When Meng Hao ran through the curve and was about to reach the starting line, Su Zhe suddenly frowned and hesitated for a moment before starting his own acceleration.
Inside the coaching area, Wang Qin froze slightly, “Eh, isn’t Xiao Zhe’s start a little slower?”
The others had also noticed that Su Zhe had started after Meng Hao had stepped over the marker line.
On the contrary, it was Su Yinsheng, who frowned for only a split second before shaking his head, “It’s not slower …… Meng Hao’s speed is a little slower than when he practiced earlier.”
Yes, it was while observing the rear that Su Zhe had realized that Meng Hao’s running speed seemed to have changed, so he had pressed on with his starting movements, and had only taken off for his start after Meng Hao had stepped over the marked line.
Sure enough, with Meng Hao running at full speed, he and Su Zhe smoothly intersected in the relay area, and at this point, the distance between the two of them was already close to the 1-meter range, entering the most suitable time to pass the baton!
“Su Zhe!”
“Catch!”
At Meng Hao’s command, Su Zhe didn’t hesitate to extend his hand backward while running, palm upward, and after contacting the baton handed over by Meng Hao, he didn’t hesitate to pinch it and then began to swing his arms to sprint forward quickly.
Crossing over the relay area, Su Zhe’s speed grew faster and faster, the results of his round-the-clock training over this period of time being on full display in his body.
The enhancement of agility improved his reaction and control, the enhancement of explosive power highlighted his presence in every powerful running movement, and the enhancement of endurance allowed Su Zhe to maintain himself at the highest speed for a longer period of time.
In the previous training, the coaching team even limited his habit of freely changing his stride, so that he could fully master the optimal stride calculated by the coaching team. After a short period of training, although Su Zhe hadn’t yet fully mastered the rhythm of this stride, he had made new improvements in the control of his stride.
In the process of sprinting, he endeavored to adjust his breathing state and the frequency of swinging his arms, and through the swinging of his arms to match his stride length and stride frequency to achieve the effect of sprinting forward faster.
Even if it was just a basic training session, Su Zhe still put on the same form as he did when facing a competition.
Under everyone’s attention, he gradually entered the final sprint stage!
Was this speed okay?
Could he go any faster?
Su Zhe’s eyes were fixed on the finish line, his back-end acceleration kicked in once again, the energy that had been stored up on the previous track exploded in the final sprint section, and he was still able to run at an astonishing speed when his body muscles should obviously be in a state of oxygen deprivation.
Finally.
Under the anticipation of thousands of people, Su Zhe smoothly crossed the line!
This team, which had only been formed temporarily, had successfully completed their ensemble in this first attempt!
In the live broadcast room, everyone temporarily breathed a sigh of relief first.
[Okay, okay! The first ensemble rehearsal was a success!]
[During their run, I was always worried about who’s passing the baton would not go well …… But the tacit understanding of these few on the relay team was much better than I thought!]
[Was Boss Zhe a little slow at the end of the run? Scared me to death, I thought he and Meng Hao were going to fail in the baton pass …… ]
[Is that so? But wasn’t their baton passing smooth? Both of them were at high speeds, and he was able to catch the baton in one go, without even holding the baton unsteadily …… ]
[My personal speculation is that Su Zhe noticed a change in Meng Hao’s speed when he saw his speed, so he slowed down a bit and started running.]
[… Upstairs, although boss Zhe is impressive, this boasting is a bit excessive. How long have they been practicing? Can they have this tacit understanding?]
[Where are the results? I just want to know the results! Where is the electronic timer? The broadcasting director won’t cut a close-up?]
The coaching staff on the track was naturally the first to see the final results.
The electronic timer located near the end of the track was displaying a bright red number: 38 seconds 63.
Seeing this number, everyone’s heart was filled with joy – there was a chance!
It should be known that in the previous training of the relay team, the team’s optimal speed had been maintained at 38 seconds and 70 seconds, and this time it was only the first trial run of the team with Su Zhe as the core, and in terms of speed, it was improved by a full 0.07 seconds compared to the previous one.
The tacit understanding and bonding between the various members of the team hadn’t yet reached an optimal level, including whether to adjust the baton passing and receiving position of each athlete in the relay area, and other issues were still waiting to be confirmed.
With just one joint training session, they achieved such a result… There were still more than twenty days of training schedule left. After further cultivating the tacit understanding among the team members, how could the team’s performance grow?
Inside the live broadcast, director Wei Liang also cut the screen to the electronic timer displaying the results of the first training session.
After seeing the final results of the practice, the live broadcast room reached a boiling point.
38.63 seconds, this result was already enough time to win a medal in the Asian Games. Although it took more effort to advance to the finals at the World Championships level, as a result of only the first joint training, this result was something to be proud of!
Tao Sheng naturally had also been paying attention to this relay team practice, for Su Yinsheng’s big gamble to be successful, he was also holding expectations.
After seeing the answer sheet delivered by the relay team, Tao Sheng also breathed a long sigh of relief.
The relay team’s hope was still alive!
As long as this result was maintained, and the team honed and improved the baton handover technique and increased the tacit understanding between the team members in the subsequent practice, then the hope of running into the finals was still very much alive!
After exiting the live broadcast room, Tao Sheng couldn’t help but write a long article on the current status of the relay team, the title of which echoed the previous day’s content – “This amazing gamble, Su Yinsheng’s victory is in hand!”
In the final moments of the article, Tao Sheng couldn’t help but put forward an uninhibited thought.
“As we all know, if you want the relay team to stabilize at the world-class level, then the strength of the individual members of the relay team can best be within 10 seconds 15. The reason why the Japanese relay team can dominate Asia for a long time and have world-class strength is also because their team members have an average strength of around 10.10 seconds.”
“If after Chen Zhi recovers from his injury, he returns to our relay team and takes over the responsibility of the second baton again …… what height can our relay team grow to by then?”
After this long article was published, it was once again forwarded by sports fans.
After celebrating the fact that the relay team finally regained the core of its lineup, the crowd also missed Chen Zhi, who was recuperating after surgery.
As the undoubted number one in domestic sprinting, Chen Zhi had an incomparable position in the hearts of all track and field enthusiasts. For a long time, Chen Zhi had been carrying the flag of domestic sprinting with his own strength, giving everyone a feeling that they were dominating in domestic sprinting.
But after Chen Zhi’s injury, the domestic 100-meter project and 4 * 100-meter men’s relay run suffered a heavy blow, which made more people truly realize how much hard work and contribution Chen Zhi had put in before . It also reminded many people of the time when Chen Zhi was injured, and some brainless sprayers on the internet smeared the incident of Chen Zhi’s injury.
On Weibo, someone said: [Under the leadership of Chen Zhi in the past, Chinese athletes participated in the World Championships, Olympic Games, and Diamond League, always able to compete against Japan’s athletes, which gave us the illusion that China’s men’s sprint strength was strong… The truly strong person was Chen Zhi. If it weren’t for Su Zhe’s sudden rise, we would even face the dilemma of no one being qualified for the men’s 100 meter race at this World Championships. We hope that some people will not insult heroes again. The hero moving forward is bleeding and shedding tears.]
This paragraph aroused widespread support from the onlookers, who had been quite an audience for sports recently, and had once again suppressed certain brainless spammers in the sports circle who took pleasure in spraying people.
Among the popular reposts on Weibo on this day, there was also a rather interesting piece of content that caught the attention of the audience.
The uncrowned king behind the men’s sprint program, who raised Chen Zhi, Su Zhe, and Zhao Zhixuan, the contemporary Bole of the track and field circle, and the mother of sprint champions, Su Yinsheng.
When Zhang Ye casually brushed open Weibo to see this message, he immediately let out a burst of shocking burst of laughter, after sending this post to Su Yinsheng’s eyes, he finally in Su Yinsheng’s mercilessly indifferent blank stare, once again harvested a stack of data integration work ……
Quickly, the Weibo blogger posted a comment like it was from Su Yinsheng in the comment section, with only three emoticons – Anger, Fury, and Fury
Even when I don’t super understand the mechanics of running they’re talking about, this story is always so inspiring 🙂 Thank you as always!