I Wasn't Born a Champion - Chapter 14

Ever since all the members of Room 303 entered the youth team’s grounds for training, their interactions and intersections with the trainees in the summer camp became much fewer. The vast majority of the summer camp trainees had already put these three people to the back of their minds, until training ended on this day, and all the summer camp trainees were called together to be notified about the camp-ending test race the next day.

“This camp-ending test race will be held tomorrow. At the same time, this camp-ending test race will also serve as the qualifiers for the National U16 Athletics Base Tournament two days from now. Once selected, you will gain the opportunity to compete on the same field with young athletes from various sports schools and provincial-level bases across the country. This will also be a level-attaining race, and the results obtained by the contestants in the competition will also serve as level-attaining results.”

If it could be said that when the summer camp first started, these trainees participating in the summer camp still had no concept of attaining levels or the U16 Base Tournament and such, then now these trainees participating in the training could be considered to have waded half a foot into the professional circle and had a rough concept of these things.

Therefore, when Liu Wenjian announced this news, the summer camp trainees below quickly let out exclamations.

Although this news had spread in the summer camp long ago, the news in private and the official announcement, after all, produced two different effects. Many people began to discuss in low voices below.

“The qualifiers! I asked around, and they said we are lucky this time. This base tournament happens to be hosted here at our base, which is why we have this opportunity. The previous summer camps didn’t encounter such a good thing!”

“But it requires being in the top three of each individual event in the qualifiers, right? Can you do it?”

“Whether I can do it or not, isn’t that something one has to try to find out?”

“Eh, did you guys notice? Those three have returned!”

“Which three?”

“Those three from 303! The special selection group!”

Although the students here in the summer camp were not familiar with the trio of Su Yu, and many people had even put them to the back of their minds, there were also those who remembered them. After all, when Su Yu took the camp-opening test race, his result of improving by more than three seconds in two days had still severely shocked them.

“Oh, them.” A trainee said disapprovingly: “So what if they are back? The three of them were originally from our summer camp anyway, they were just taken to the next door by the coach to train separately, that’s all.”

“After training for so long, I wonder how their training results are.”

“Don’t know. I feel Zhou Yuang should be very awesome. Before training, he was already at eleven-plus seconds. After more than a month, shouldn’t he advance to another level? On the other hand, that Su Yu, I don’t know what his situation is.”

“He should also be very awesome, right? Didn’t they say before that his result improved by more than three seconds all at once?”

“Hard to say, right? Didn’t you hear what those big shots from the youth team said? Improving by more than three seconds all at once was because he had never practiced before. By learning a bit of technique and whatnot, the improvement is very fast, but to advance forward from fourteen-plus seconds is absolutely not simple. It all relies on talent. Look at how weak and thin that Su Yu is, having practiced for about a month, we haven’t seen him grow any muscle. In this state, how much progress do you expect him to make?”

“Here in our summer camp’s sprint group, although it’s not to say that everyone is awesome, Xu Ziqi and Liao Weiwei, the two of them can also run twelve-plus seconds! And during the training in this period of time, haven’t they also broken their own PBs? Xu Ziqi has even run a 12.07, and is about to break the twelve-second barrier. If it really comes down to a comparison, Xu Ziqi isn’t even flinched by Zhou Yuang. Even if he, Su Yu, can progress from 14.32 to within 13 seconds, could it be that you still expect him to beat Xu Ziqi and Liao Weiwei?”

After Liu Wenjian finished announcing the news of the qualifiers, looking at these summer camp trainees who were discussing in low voices, he smiled: “In tomorrow’s qualifiers, I hope our summer camp trainees can compete with style and achieve results—over this period of time, everyone has already experienced the hardship of athlete training, and I also hope that in tomorrow’s camp-ending test race cum National U16 Base Tournament Qualifiers, everyone can live up to their own hard work during this period of time and take down the most ideal result!”

After announcing these pieces of news, there were assistant coaches organizing the group drawings and selections for everyone. Finally, after all the preparatory work was concluded, Liu Wenjian also officially announced the dismissal, and the summer camp trainees present immediately scattered in all directions.

The trio of Su Yu, Jiang Yuan, and Zhou Yuang from Room 303 habitually gathered together and were about to leave, when Xu Ziqi and Liao Weiwei, whom everyone had been discussing earlier, appeared in front of the trio of Su Yu.

The aura of these two, at a glance, showed they were here to ‘look for trouble’.

However, this time, the object of their trouble-seeking was not Su Yu, but Zhou Yuang.

“Zhou Yuang, losing to you at the previous All-Province Middle School Students Games was just an accident. In tomorrow’s qualifiers, we’ll see the final outcome!”

These two knew Zhou Yuang before the summer camp opened. They were precisely the second place in the men’s 100 meters and the third place in the men’s 200-meter sprint at the All-Province Middle School Games where Zhou Yuang became famous in one battle.

They were all youths, and all possessed a share of youthful arrogance. They believed that although they might not be able to beat those big shots in the provincial youth team, challenging Zhou Yuang was not necessarily a losing game.

Because when Zhou Yuang was at the All-Province Middle School Students Games back then, his results in the preliminaries and semifinals were just ordinary. His condition exploded in the finals stage, running a result of 11.33, which was how he pressed them down underneath. But at the previous camp-opening test race, Zhou Yuang’s result was only 11.83.

During this period of time, the other trainees of the summer camp thought that only Xu Ziqi had run a 12.07 in the 100 meters. In fact, in their private training, both Xu Ziqi and Liao Weiwei had run into within 12 seconds. Even if their condition was not stable enough, they felt that they absolutely had the strength to battle against Zhou Yuang.

Facing the ‘declaration of war’ from the two opponents, Zhou Yuang gave a hehe smile and said: “Sure, if you want to compete then let’s compete, we’ll see the final outcome tomorrow!”

It was only after he confidently sent Xu Ziqi and Liao Weiwei away that his face slumped, and then he grabbed hold of Su Yu on the side, sighing: “Little Ancestor, I am finished!”

During this period of time, Su Yu had already slapped away Zhou Yuang’s paws an unknown number of times. He never knew that this person, who looked stable and reliable as the number one sprinter of the Chinese team ten years later, had such a personality during his youth.

Because his strength was inferior to Zhou Yuang’s, he could only pry his hands open while knitting his brows, saying simultaneously: “Let go.”

Zhou Yuang allowed him to pull and pry for a while, firmly stepping on the critical limit of the Little Ancestor’s irritability, before blinking his eyes and letting go of Su Yu, turning instead to cling onto Jiang Yuan who was easier to talk to, continuing to sigh: “Alas, Yuan-zi, my life is bitter.”

Su Yu glanced at him, too lazy to pay attention to him.

Zhou Yuang noticed that Su Yu’s gaze had shifted away, so he continued to sell his misery: “For a whole summer camp, others were training techniques, I was changing my power-generating leg. Others were training strength, I was changing my power-generating leg. Others were developing speed endurance, I was changing my power-generating leg… I really am so bitter.”

Su Yu felt that the Zhou Yuang of more than a month ago wasn’t this rogue-like, and the him of more than a month later already had a face as thick as a wall.

He pointed out bluntly: “Your training program was not just changing the dominant power-generating leg.”

“Your entire technique has undergone reshaping, including the overall running posture maintenance and technical stability during your running process, which have both been well elevated.”

Over this period of more than a month, Su Yu could be said to have rapidly developed from an ordinary person who only had a basic understanding of sprinting into an insider who had a preliminary understanding of the entire knowledge system of sprinting.

All of this was thanks to Pei Dingshan’s 1v1 exclusive theoretical lessons.

If he still had some doubts about each of his training items in the early stages of the summer camp, at the current stage, he already had a relatively sufficient understanding of his training items.

Including why Pei Dingshan wanted Zhou Yuang to change his dominant power-generating leg and why he wanted to reshape Zhou Yuang’s entire set of basic technical systems, the reasons behind this were all related to the athlete’s future long-term development.

Of course, under Pei Dingshan’s guidance, he also understood the reason why Pei Dingshan consistently limited his training volume but elevated his training quality—compared to this training volume which had been repeatedly adjusted by Pei Dingshan, in his past life, it was precisely because of the inappropriate training volume and his own teeth-gritting endurance that some irreversible damage was produced on his body during the process of the summer camp.

Although in his heart he inexplicably still had a resistant psychology toward Pei Dingshan, one sentence Pei Dingshan said was correct—he needed to believe in Pei Dingshan.

Seeing his misery-selling exposed by Su Yu, Zhou Yuang on the side didn’t feel embarrassed in the slightest, but instead continued to hook his arm around Jiang Yuan’s shoulder, revealing his row of big white teeth as he smiled and said: “Although that’s true, my best result actually hasn’t caught up to before changing the dominant power-generating leg.”

Su Yu: “…”

Su Yu was too lazy to pay attention to him, gave him a look, turned around, and left.

Jiang Yuan was also too lazy to pay attention to him, grabbed Zhou Yuang’s paw that was resting on his shoulder, threw it away, and left together with Su Yu.

After a hehe laugh, Zhou Yuang also followed their Room 303’s Little Ancestor and the Little Ancestor’s brother in the direction of the dormitory—their Little Ancestor was right, after changing his dominant power-generating leg and basically being equivalent to relearning a whole set of techniques including starting blocks starting technique, full-speed acceleration technique, transition running technique, arm-swinging technique, and sprinting technique, though it felt awkward at the very beginning, now he finally felt that kind of delightful feeling brought about by the correct and suitable technique.

In the past, although his starting explosive power was strong, he always felt that some strength was not used in the right place, so running felt awkward, and the transition between the starting acceleration phase and transition running always had some areas he couldn’t quite grasp well. Sometimes he ran smoothly and sometimes it wouldn’t work, which also led to the fluctuation and instability of his results.

And during this period of time, although his training in strength, explosive power, and other aspects was less, he learned to better utilize his explosive power and strength.

To put it in more popular terms, his ‘running efficiency’ had elevated.

Although because of changing the dominant power-generating leg and adapting to new techniques and other reasons, his current results had not yet been able to break through, just like what their Little Ancestor said, his current results had gradually become stable with an upward trend.

He could even already see the moment of breaking his PB after his overall technique was fully integrated!

But well…

Zhou Yuang looked at Su Yu who had already left ahead, and smiled—his old rivals wanted to challenge this time, but they could be considered to have challenged the wrong person, because due to the technical modification, he might lose to Xu Ziqi and the others, but the person who would ultimately win the race might not necessarily be him, Xu Ziqi, or Liao Weiwei!

The next morning, the provincial sports team’s athletics-themed summer camp-ending test race cum National U16 Base Tournament Qualifiers officially raised its curtain.

Based on the overall characteristic bias of the summer camp, this camp-ending test race only examined the trainees’ results in sprint, hurdle, and jump-related projects, containing the men’s and women’s 100 meters, 200 meters, and 400 meters, long jump, high jump, 110-meter hurdles, 400-meter hurdles, and other projects.

The summer camp coaches provided the trainees with 1 to 3 individual event registration options according to each trainee’s situation, and the final registration quantity was decided by the trainees themselves.

The coaches of the provincial sports team’s sprint group could be considered to have anticipated today for a long time. Almost early in the morning, the coaching group had already appeared outside the competition venue and began to discuss in twos and threes.

“Old Liu, during this period of time, how exactly do you see that Su Yu doing?”

What everyone asked about was naturally the head coach of the summer camp, Liu Wenjian.

Liu Wenjian shook his head: “Can’t really tell. Although Xiao Pei and I teach on the same grounds, there are quite a few people to manage here in the high jump and long jump groups. Xiao Pei’s training there and my daily training diverge rather far apart, so I actually can’t really see that Su Yu’s training situation.”

Receiving this answer, the coaches present didn’t actually feel surprised.

In fact, during this period of time, the coaches of the sprint group had also secretly observed quite a few times, but one point that could be clear was that the training volume Pei Dingshan gave Su Yu was truly small. It couldn’t be said that practicing was the same as not practicing, but at least in their view, they absolutely wouldn’t dare to give their own athletes only this little training volume.

Of course, the arrangement of this training volume varying according to the athlete’s personal physical conditions and training direction was a common occurrence. It’s just that under the circumstance of not developing strength and explosive power, how exactly was Xiao Pei going to guarantee that Su Yu’s results would be good to the extent of making them feel ‘amazing’?

After all, according to Xiao Pei’s words, when they watched Su Yu’s performance at the camp-ending test race, that would make them forget about Zhou Yuang!

Because in their hearts they were consistently anticipating this answer, it reached the point where the coaches felt like scratching their heads in impatience during the time waiting for the test race to begin.

Fortunately, the start time of this camp-ending test race had long been arranged. Although they came early, over ten minutes later, all the summer camp trainees had arrived on time to gather and check in. Su Yu, Zhou Yuang, and Jiang Yuan were naturally among them.

Among the three, it was as usual Zhou Yuang talking and laughing, Su Yu having no expression, and Jiang Yuan occasionally smiling in response to Zhou Yuang.

Because it was not considered an overly official event, Liu Wenjian just went up to encourage all the summer camp trainees again when the competition was about to begin, and then quickly announced the official start of the competition.

Afterwards, the first to begin were the two individual events of high jump and long jump.

Under Liu Wenjian’s suggestion, Jiang Yuan ultimately registered for both events simultaneously. If it could be said that in the two sprint individual events of 100 meters and 200 meters there were still trainees in the summer camp who could compete with Zhou Yuang, then in the two individual events of long jump and high jump, after more than a month of training and adjustments by Liu Wenjian, an opponent for Jiang Yuan could no longer be found in the entire summer camp.

Particularly in the long jump, merely the first jump basically already established Jiang Yuan’s victory.

The coaches of the sprint group by the trackside were likewise familiar with long jump and high jump. Upon seeing this first jump of Jiang Yuan’s, their eyes lit up one after another, praising Liu Wenjian for truly finding a good prospect.

“This Jiang Yuan, his talent in long jump and high jump is absolutely not inferior to Zhou Yuang!”

The expression on Liu Wenjian’s face was obviously also extremely satisfied with Jiang Yuan. Jiang Yuan not only had good talent but also a good temper and good patience, and could make adjustments well toward the guidance he gave.

If one absolutely had to state a point that wasn’t quite good, it was probably…

“The desire for victory isn’t strong enough.”

In Liu Wenjian’s view, Jiang Yuan’s temper was a bit too good. If he could win he would win, and if he couldn’t win then forget it. During this period of time, he had also let other trainees of the youth group go and provoke him, but this kid could make those kids of his youth group explode with anger just by moving his lips.

He didn’t know how he managed to have both a good temper and a toxic tongue.

But in short, the matter of Jiang Yuan’s desire for victory not being strong enough was true, and it had also troubled Liu Wenjian for a long time. For the time being, he temporarily couldn’t find any way to solve it either.

While the first round of the long jump and high jump here was still underway, over on the other side, the first round of the 100 meters was also just about to begin.

The entire summer camp had a total of 101 trainees, 73 males and 28 females, among whom nearly 50 male and female trainees were learning sprinting. Among these 50 trainees, except for Su Yu who only registered for the 100-meter individual event, the remaining 80% registered for both the 100-meter and 200-meter individual events, and the other 20% were doubling in the 100 meters and 400 meters.

On the whole, the proportion gap was not big compared to the provincial team’s athletes in the 100 meters, 200 meters, and 400 meters.

Because 28 of the males registered for the 100-meter sprint test race, this was also considered the individual event with the greatest competitive difficulty in this test race. These 28 trainees were divided into 4 preliminary groups. After the first round, the top 2 contestants of each group would be selected to advance to the second round, which was to decide the final victory or defeat in the finals.

Among the 4 preliminary groups, Zhou Yuang and Su Yu were in the first group and the second group respectively. Coincidentally, Xu Ziqi and Liao Weiwei, who had ‘declared war’ on Zhou Yuang yesterday, were also in the first group and the second group respectively. It just so happened that this pair from Room 303’s ‘special selection group’ faced off 1v1.

The one facing off against Zhou Yuang first was Liao Weiwei, which made Xu Ziqi slightly unsatisfied.

After all, although they were both members of the special selection group taken away by Pei Dingshan, rumors had spread high and low in the summer camp that the reason why Pei Dingshan took away Su Yu was only because he was too weak, carrying him along as a hanger to help him exercise his body and give him extra care.

A competition with this kind of ‘special selection group’ member, even if one won, didn’t have much meaning.

Between the two of them, Liao Weiwei was obviously much happier, looking at Zhou Yuang, wishing he could decide victory or defeat with him on the spot during the preliminary stage.

As for Su Yu and Zhou Yuang, they didn’t care about whatever thoughts Xu Ziqi and Liao Weiwei had.

What Su Yu needed to care about more in today’s competition was whether his physical condition could well support his entire race course during the two full-effort runs in the preliminaries and finals.

As for Zhou Yuang?

What he cared about was whether he could maintain the condition from training in this relatively official test race.

Therefore, both Liao Weiwei and Xu Ziqi felt the attitude of disregard toward them from Su Yu and Zhou Yuang, these two members of the ‘special selection group’. This made both of them, who had come carrying the aura of a ‘declaration of war’, feel exceptionally suffocated and annoyed, making up their minds one after another to give Zhou Yuang and Su Yu some color to see in the upcoming race.

Particularly that Su Yu!

A guy who could only run a 13.32, even if he was in the special selection group, on what grounds did he disregard them?

It was precisely carrying such an aura that Liao Weiwei, Zhou Yuang, and 5 other contestants of the first preliminary group came together before the starting line. Amidst the starter’s command of “On your marks” on the field, the contestants of the first group moved to the front of their respective starting blocks one after another, supporting the ground with both hands and stepping onto the front and rear pedals of the starting blocks.

After more than a month of training, the starting blocks starting technique of these trainees had already seen a significant elevation, and each and every one looked decent and proper, but whether it was just a superficial gloss or a true mastery of the technique still had differences.

Outside the track, the coaches of the sprint group had already placed their attention onto the competition of this group, and then very quickly someone noticed the change in Zhou Yuang’s running posture.

“Eh? Zhou Yuang’s running posture?”

During this period of time, although these coaches occasionally went to observe Su Yu’s training, coincidentally they hadn’t caught up to Zhou Yuang’s starting training lessons. Therefore, it was only until this moment that they surprisingly discovered Zhou Yuang had actually changed his dominant power-generating leg.

“Xiao Pei, he…!”

“Can the dominant power-generating leg be changed so casually?!”

The coaches of the sprint group couldn’t help but shout out in surprise, wanting to say that such a change was too imprudent. After all, who could guarantee that Zhou Yuang’s results would definitely be able to elevate rapidly after changing his dominant power-generating leg?

To sprint coaches like them, every technical adjustment for a contestant needed to go through repeated thinking and discussion. This was only speaking of smaller issues such as the folding angle of the upper and lower leg. Once it involved a big issue like changing the dominant power-generating leg, they would wish for the coaches of the entire group to repeatedly research and discuss it before being able to finally make up their minds.

None of these coaches expected that Pei Dingshan would actually so easily and simply carry out such a large technical modification for Zhou Yuang during the duration of this summer camp.

“This Zhou Yuang… could it be that Xiao Pei said Su Yu’s performance would be better than Zhou Yuang’s because he had long ago decided to perform a technical modification on Zhou Yuang?”

A coach put forward such an incredible guess, but the other coaches didn’t think this way.

“Let’s watch first.”

Looking at Zhou Yuang on the track who had already altered his dominant power-generating leg, changing the dominant power-generating leg from the right leg to the left leg, all the coaches knew that even if they wanted to persuade him now, it was already long too late for everything. Therefore, they could only look at Zhou Yuang on the starting blocks with solemn expressions.

Merely a period of more than a month, was it enough for him, Zhou Yuang, to conduct technical adjustments?

Merely this period of more than a month, even if the technique was modified, could Zhou Yuang adapt so quickly and catch up to his previous results?

Would it turn out in the end that Zhou Yuang, who had run into within 12 seconds during the camp-opening test race, wouldn’t even be able to enter the finals by the time of the camp-ending test race?

Harboring such worries, all the coaches placed their attention into the test race before them.

Not only the coaches, but even the trainees learned about Zhou Yuang’s technical modification from the discussions of some coaches around them. Xu Ziqi’s brows knitted even more tightly, feeling that Zhou Yuang, after a sudden technical modification, might very likely be unable to meet him in the finals.

Among all the people present, except for Pei Dingshan who stood alone not far away, only Su Yu who stood by the trackside didn’t produce any doubt toward Zhou Yuang.

He glanced at that guy who was crouching on the starting blocks with both eyes shining brightly, and turned around alone to go to an area aside to warm up and prepare—after this group of Zhou Yuang’s ended, it should immediately be his turn to go on the field too.

Although his body was indeed weak now and his talent was perhaps inferior to Zhou Yuang’s, thinking of Xu Ziqi and Liao Weiwei who didn’t place him in their eyes at all, whether in the provocation of the previous day or just now.

Su Yu pursed his lips, the expression on his face gradually turning stubborn.

Facing such opponents—he indeed… didn’t want to lose either!