A month’s time passed quickly, and it was time for the All-Championships competition.
Unlike international competitions, all domestic players, regardless of adult and youth groups, all competed together and ranked together.
In this way, the youth group players even had the possibility to beat the adult group players.
Only this possibility, for so many years, had never had the opportunity to really happen.
After all, the players in the adult group had experienced more training and competitions, and most of them were far superior to the youth group in terms of both skills and experience.
So for many years, the three medals of each All-Championships had almost always been a no-brainer.
For example, nowadays, even before the start of the competition, in the audience’s mind, Guan Hao’s gold medal could be considered almost without a doubt, the nail in the coffin.
The music for the competition had been submitted, and the starting order for this year’s championships was still decided by lottery.
There were a total of 18 contestants from all over the country.
In a group of six, Lin Lang drew the 16th place, together with Guan Hao in the 14th place and Yu Tong in the 15th place in the last group.
On the tournament schedule, the short program and free skating each took up one day before and one day after, and the short program was the one to be compared today.
Before the official start of each group’s competition, there would be a six-minute practice session for all the skaters to familiarize themselves with the ice and find their form, referred to as the six practice sessions.
The local stadium in J City wasn’t too big and the audience wasn’t much, but thanks to the blessing of the men’s singles, at least it looked like it was half full.
Among this half of the audience, almost 80% of them were fans who came to support Guan Hao with all kinds of support items. Only a handful of people came to see other people, and of those people, the one who received the most attention was Yu Tong.
After all, from so many competitions in the past, there was no time when he couldn’t reach the podium in the country. Now the audience had pinned the entire domestic skating future and hope on him.
There were so many skaters in the arena, but Lin Lang was the only one who was almost unrecognizable.
On the whole stand, only Wang Ling, the designer who made the costume for him before, came specifically for him.
The rest could be said to not even recognize who he was.
—
“Eh, do you guys see that little brother in the corner wearing a hat? The one wearing the black tracksuit jacket! I happened to take a look at him when he took off his hat just now, and his looks are too good!”
“Just that one! He’s so pretty, but he’s wearing a wolf’s tail, and he looks so cute and fierce, so eye-catching. I just don’t know how strong he is.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him compete, maybe he’s pretty good too?”
On the stands, a few ice fans holding different players’ supporting banners noticed Lin Lang in the corner, waiting to go on stage.
Having just been attracted by his appearance and anticipating his strength, someone right next to them immediately poured a pot of cold water over.
“Don’t even think about it, he’s a 100% rookie.”
“I’ve been chasing skating for five years, and I’ve watched almost every competition at home and abroad, big and small. But I’ve never seen such a person.”
“Any player with strength, which club would hide them and not release them to participate in competitions. I guess he’s just a pretty face from an ice rink that I don’t know.”
“As long as he can jump a triple jump, we can already say it’s considered good.”
The few girls behind him were still chattering and discussing, Wang Ling mingled in the crowd of spectators on the stands with his mask and hat, and the only thing that could be seen differently at a glance was that his eyes were focused on Lin Lang alone from the beginning to the end.
Although he and Lin Lang had only hurriedly met once before because of training, just that once was enough for Wang Ling to be sure that this person was by no means an idle one.
If he was strong in costume design, he would only be stronger than that in skating.
This was something that the surrounding audience didn’t know, but Yu Tong was more than aware of.
Some years ago, when he heard the name Lin Lang for the first time from Yao Qing’s mouth, he only said that he did have a little bit of talent, but he never made any effort to improve himself, and he just wanted to take shortcuts and wasted his energy on evil things, so his strength had been average for so many years.
But this time when Lin Lang came to the national team, Yu Tong accidentally caught a glimpse of his training scenes several times, it was as if he was dying each time.
That kind of intensity, on his own, he simply couldn’t even dare to think about it.
At first, because of the impression that Yao Qing had previously given him, Yu Tong had always thought that no matter how powerful Lin Lang was, as long as he worked hard and wanted to win over him, then there would definitely not be any problems.
But looking at it now, it seemed like that wasn’t the case.
The Lin Lang he saw in front of his eyes was also a little different from what brother Yao Qing had described.
This caused him to be in a trance, and his heart, which had always been very firm before, suddenly became a little wobbly.
On one hand, he felt that Lin Lang didn’t seem to be as bad as Yao Qing said, but on the other hand, he felt that he was a jerk for doubting the idol that he had worshipped for so many years, and even he even thought well of the person who bullied him.
His mind was a mess, as if there were two little people fighting.
One moment he overpowered me, and the next moment I overpowered him.
He could only shake my head and not think about it, and spent all his thoughts on the field of play, after all, sports competitions didn’t include human feelings, they only talked about strength and winning.
Regardless of how Lin Lang was doing, he was going to do his best to compete in this game.
This month, although Lin Lang indeed practiced hard, but Yu Tong had also put in unprecedented effort, let alone now, he still held a secret weapon that had just been trained.
Just wait for the time to come out on the stage, he’d amaze the whole audience, giving all domestic ice fans and coaches an unexpected surprise.
——
The game continued on and on, and it was finally Lin Lang’s turn to play in the much anticipated final group.
During the six minutes of practice, all the players did a few of their own moves and showed a few similar jumps, and received cheers and applause from most of the spectators as a result.
Only Lin Lang, apart from a very ordinary two-week jump, had been gliding smoothly along the field from start to finish, and in the whole six minutes, he had hardly made any outstanding moves.
This also made some of the people in the audience believe even more in the words of those around them who said that Lin Lang was just a vase and didn’t actually have any strength.
“I told you, he’s just a vase who can’t even do a triple jump.”
“There’s nothing to look forward to at all, this is a skating competition, if you really want to like it, please like some athletes with strength and skill, don’t just look at faces.”
Wang Ling was sitting in front of the person who spoke, watching her hold her chin up in a serious manner, conveying an inexplicable sense of superiority to the girls around her who said they were looking forward to Lin Lang’s performance at first.
He couldn’t help but feel a bit amused, even leaning on his chin. The more he listened, the more he felt hopeful, hoping that Lin Lang would change the current situation.
At the same time, he also looked forward to how the girl would be in front of these girls who were now being criticized by her for their unique vision.
After all, what Lin Lang cared about was never other people’s eyes or compliments, all he did was purely for the sake of the competition.
The reason why he didn’t go overboard with the difficult jumps during the six-minute practice was simply because it wasn’t really necessary.
The pair of ice skates he was wearing under his feet was specially made for him by Shen Lianqiu, and was different from all the ice skates he had worn before.
The blade adopted the latest wear-resistant and ultra light materials developed by H Province, and also adopted a hollow design. At the connection between the shoe body and the blade, the same level of carbon fiber as commonly used in various luxury car supercars was used.
All of this was done to minimize the weight of the entire ice blade, allowing Lin Lang’s jumps to reach a higher level.
At the same time, in the curvature of the blade and the distribution of the teeth, Shen Lianqiu also made changes based on this benchmark.
Such a pair of ice skates could indeed make Lin Lang’s jumps reach a higher level, but at the same time, in terms of skating, it would also be relatively more difficult to control.
Using just two weeks to get used to such a pair of unfamiliar skates was an extremely laborious thing, the reason why Lin Lang was able to do it was also attributed to his richer experience than the average player, as well as the absolute strength in all aspects, with almost no shortcomings.
—
Up until now, the one who had received the most attention was undoubtedly Guan Hao, from the fans’ wild support when he came on stage, to the boisterous, wave-like applause in the entire arena at the end of his short program, all of which reminded the others of the mountainous barriers between him and the others.
After the short program, Guan Hao, Lin Lang and Yu Tong’s scores were similar, which was enough to make some people feel uncomfortable as if they were sitting on pins and needles.
But the real attraction was still the free skate, which had more room to play.
Guan Hao was in good shape this time, both in the short program and the free skate, he achieved very good results.
As soon as the gentle and affectionate performance was over, some spectators around him immediately threw his favorite cat dolls onto the ice.
Throwing dolls or flowers onto the ice after a game was a special custom in skating.
Some of the more famous skaters received gifts that correspond to their personal preferences or the theme of the program.
For example, Guan Hao’s favorite kitten.
Obviously, he looked like a cool boy, but in fact, no matter what his preferences are, he was a gentle and delicate cat.
Just like Lin Lang, who was exactly the opposite of him, he looked delicate and beautiful, petite and cute, but in fact, he was both fierce and wild.
After Guan Hao’s performance ended, the atmosphere in the entire arena was pushed straight to a climax, and even Yu Tong, who wasn’t originally expected by so many people, got more gazes as a result.
The good thing was that he was strong enough to not let this anticipation, turn into disappointment.
His whole performance style was just like the feeling he gave people, lively and lovely, youthful and sunny. In some small details between every move, it could also make people feel a little bit of childish teasing, and the scale was well controlled.
The atmosphere in the arena, as well as the audience’s emotions, was his successful catch, and led to continue to rise upward.
Later, it was ultimately brought directly to its peak by an unexpected Bellman rotation at the end.
Not only all the spectators in the arena, even the players of the national team who trained with him every day didn’t expect this.
Among the crowd, the one who was most surprised by this was Ji Cangshu, who stood beside Lin Lang and originally thought that he would be able to work a miracle with Lin Lang in this match.