I Wasn't Born a Champion - Chapter 9

With the blast of the starting pistol, eight students on the same starting line moved simultaneously at the sound.

Beside the track, the observing sprint coaches also stopped their idle chatting and laughing, turning to look seriously at these eight young trainees taking the test on the track.

In fact, for these coaches who were used to watching high-level domestic competitions, a race like this among summer camp students barely had any selling points.

Take the start, for example. The students generally had not received specialized start reaction training. When listening for the pistol to start, they were not only easily distracted but also failed to react as promptly, which is commonly known as the body being unable to keep up with the brain.

This situation occasionally happened even to active athletes, let alone ordinary students who had received absolutely no relevant training.

If judged by the excellent standards of professional athletes, the reaction time to the starting pistol needs to be within 0.15 seconds to be considered qualified, whereas these students before them who lacked training usually took up to 0.3 seconds. If someone dazed out for a moment, the time would be even longer.

Secondly, the students present were unskillful in utilizing the starting blocks, and their preparatory movements were not in place. The vast majority failed to achieve the forward-surging explosive preparatory effect at the start. Worse still, some unaccustomed trainees would even get confused about which leg they should exert force with to push off and surge forward when starting.

All of the above were merely some of the potential problems these trainees might have during the start phase.

Not to mention the hip-driving action during running, the landing point of the body’s center of gravity during running, the arm-swinging posture during running, and so forth. In short, through the eyes of these coaches, the competition among these trainees was simply riddled with flaws all over.

Of course, if put that way, it would be meaningless for the coaches to watch the summer camp trainees’ test.

In reality, that was certainly not the case.

For these unpolished trainees, what the coaches looked at was definitely not the skills that only needed to be considered for mature athletes, but rather the natural talent conditions shown in their speed ability, sense of power, body elasticity, and body shape.

These coaches had originally planned to cast aside these trainees’ technical performances and purely look at their talent situations. However, as soon as this test began, a slight accident seemed to occur.

At the very instant the starting pistol went off on the scene, Su Yu, whose hands supported him on the ground and whose eyes were focused on the track ahead, rapidly pushed off and started. His preparatory posture was already relatively standard compared to the testing athletes in the same group. The very moment the starting pistol sounded, his body already possessed a natural forward-surging trend and impulse.

Although it could be clearly seen that Su Yu’s explosive power and strength were not strong, relying on his focused and sharp reaction to the pistol and smooth starting movements during the start phase was enough to allow him to win a certain advantage during the start phase.

“Hey, look at that, this Su Yu’s start reaction is quite fast?”

A coach nodded, but still did not think highly of Su Yu. “The explosive power and strength are too weak.”

Jokes aside from earlier, the coaches after all had their own judgments.

During the start phase, Su Yu, by virtue of his excellent start reaction and starting movements, gained an advantage of about 0.5 seconds over the trainees in the same group. This part of the advantage gave him a lead of about 4 meters over the athletes in the same group, but this lead could not be maintained for too long. His explosive power and strength were still too weak. In front of other trainees who, though incomplete in technique, possessed excellent physical talent conditions, those trainees could quickly rely on the strength of their physical talent to catch up on the distance lost during the start reaction phase and the first three steps.

Huh?

Wait a minute?

What happened to catching up as expected?

Perhaps the trainees in the same group as Su Yu had ordinary levels of talent themselves. Although after realizing they were behind, these trainees also worked quite hard to chase forward, during the phase where the start transitioned into the acceleration run, unexpectedly no student caught up to Su Yu?!

Or rather, some trainees had already pressed close to Su Yu after accelerating, but Su Yu actually maintained his advantage under the circumstance where his own explosive power and strength were obviously on the weaker side?!

“This elastic strength… this is a feedback of elastic strength, right?”

A coach realized what was happening, clicking his tongue in wonder as he watched Su Yu’s performance.

“And this movement posture during running is maintained very well, ah!”

Very obviously, Su Yu’s entire running form was the closest to standard among all the trainees. Whether it was the proactive hip-driving, the alternating downward pressing of both legs combined with the landing point of his body’s center of gravity, or even his arm-swinging actions, all helped him utilize the least amount of force and physical consumption to achieve better speed performance throughout the overall running process.

It wasn’t until the test passed the halfway mark that these coaches spectating beside the track discovered with surprise that Su Yu was not only capable of relatively standard technical movements, but he also seemed to be instinctively utilizing the ground elasticity of the track?

On the track, Su Yu, who was currently undergoing the test, did not know that the surrounding coaches were observing his performance. From the moment his feet stepped onto the pedals of the starting blocks, his attention had already been entirely placed on the track ahead of him.

As he focused his attention on the track, Pei Dingshan, who was similarly standing beside the track observing, also nodded slightly.

On the other side, Zhou Yu’ang had also observed Su Yu’s focused performance, and his eyes immediately lit up slightly. Upon seeing Su Yu’s series of starting movements, Zhou Yu’ang even slapped Jiang Yuan’s shoulder hard.

“How about it, Yuan-zi! I told you our little ancestor is very talented!”

There was excitement in Zhou Yu’ang’s voice.

Jiang Yuan ignored Zhou Yu’ang’s words. He was similarly focusing on observing Su Yu on the track. Watching Su Yu on the track undergo his test with focus and dedication despite being a bit green, a thought truly arose in his heart: “Xiao Yu really seems to suit this track very well.”

The instant the starting pistol sounded, all the surrounding noise had already left Su Yu. His mind was highly concentrated. He clearly knew his weaknesses in physical energy, strength, explosive power, and other aspects, but just as the coaches present and Zhou Yu’ang had observed, by relying on the techniques he had gradually become familiar with over these two days, he utilized his available strength to his greatest possibility.

His left leg exerted its full strength at the instant of the starting push-off and explosive drive, combined with the forward-surging potential energy brought by the forward shift of his center of gravity during start preparation, helping him start better during the start phase. While other trainees were still not quite accustomed to starting with starting blocks, he had already smoothly exploded forward for three consecutive steps during the starting explosion phase and rapidly transitioned into rising and accelerating.

He brought every single forward stride into his control as much as possible.

His mind still remembered the simple key points mentioned by Pei Dingshan during the training of these two days—driving the hips, pressing down with the steps, feeling the ground’s elastic power, and then utilizing it.

—If your strength is not enough to send you forward well, then let the ground’s elastic power help you advance better.

Thump, thump.

It was the sound of his heart pounding rapidly after the high-speed explosion of power and fast consumption of physical energy.

During this brief dozen or so seconds of time, Su Yu clenched his teeth tightly. He could no longer hear any more sounds in his ears, only the violent pounding of his heart inside his chest cavity and the sound of each step striking the ground as his feet landed.

He could faintly perceive that someone seemed to be closing in on him from behind, but what he could do was only to constantly push forward and forward again, relying on the feedback force the ground gave him, relying on the remaining momentum brought by the front-stage explosion, and relying on the forward kinetic energy brought by each stubbornly maintained arm-swinging movement.

In just a matter of a few seconds, this unprecedented explosive run had already brought a massive burden to Su Yu’s body. Every single stride Su Yu took beneath his feet made him feel his body gradually breaking away from his control.

One step, two steps, three steps…

The rapid slipping away of his bodily strength made each step of Su Yu’s running thereafter increasingly difficult. But no matter how his body clamored, he firmly maintained the movement posture he could maintain, and then pushed forward even more firmly.

The coaches beside the track had originally felt that Su Yu could perhaps only rely on his start pistol reaction and the performance of his first three steps at the start to barely open up a distance from the other trainees, and that once the acceleration run ended and the midway run began, he would be gradually left behind. Yet to their surprise, after the test passed the halfway mark, the trainees who had originally closed in on Su Yu were actually gradually pulled away by Su Yu once again.

“This ability in the midway run…”

“Is very stable?!”

“This kid has a lot of resilience!”

Right up to the final sprint phase, Su Yu did not have any thought of giving up brought by bodily fatigue.

Even when reaching the final sprint phase, his body was indeed extremely fatigued, but he still clenched his teeth, leaning his body posture forward and increasing the amplitude of his arm swings, crossing the finish line of this test in the best possible sprinting posture.

“Winner of this test group—Student Su Yu, No. 12 Middle School.”

“Final result: 14.32 seconds (wind speed -0.02m/s).”

The moment Su Yu dashed across the finish line, the summer camp trainees waiting on the side to test were the first to cry out in surprise.

“Holy shit, how is it him!”

Amidst the exclamations of the trainees waiting on the field, some trainees who had not been paying attention to this group of sprint tests also turned their heads curiously, asking one after another what had happened.

“What’s going on, what’s going on? Who won, ah? Why is there such a huge commotion?”

“Su Yu! That Su Yu!”

“Fuck? Su Yu?”

“Is it that physically weak Su Yu? No way, what kind of level are the ones testing in this group, ah? They can’t even outrun Su Yu?”

Once the results of the second and third place following behind Su Yu came out, the trainees present were all stunned.

“Second place is 14.47 seconds, third place is 14.59 seconds. Damn, these results aren’t weak either?”

Don’t look at how the 100-meter sprint results familiar to the public are all in the single digits, right around 10-odd seconds, but that is the adult group and involves professional athletes of higher levels. In fact, a men’s result of 12.64 seconds is already enough to meet the standard of a national third-level athlete.

And looking from the overall physical testing standards of the junior high school stage, 13.5 seconds is an excellent level, and 16 seconds is a pass.

The results of these trainees in the same group as Su Yu were generally within 15 seconds, all being good levels for the junior high school stage. Combined with these trainees’ lack of adaptation to starting block starts and listening to the pistol to start, if these situations were integrated with the final results for a comprehensive look, these trainees were actually not bad at all.

As a result, they actually all lost to Su Yu?!

That weakling who was universally recognized as coming to the summer camp just to coast along?

“No way… I remember someone reported Su Yu’s results before, ah. Wasn’t his personal best 100-meter result 17-odd seconds? Fuck, so he just came to the summer camp for two days, and his result leaped forward by 3 seconds?!”