Chapter 198: The Result is Certain
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The entire day's work depended on a good start in the morning. For athletes, breakfast was quite important. A nutritious breakfast could offer sufficient energy for a whole morning's exercise. In contrast, dinner was not essential. Many athletes who wanted to control their weight chose not to have dinner when they were dieting. Research studies showed that it was not healthy to not eat breakfast for a long time.
At seven o'clock in the morning, the canteen chefs got various breakfast ready to serve. Considering the athletes were from all around the country with different preferences, the canteen offered a full range of food. The key point was to provide rich nutrition. Within the next half hour, coaches and athletes flooded in, making the canteen busy.
Dai Li was jogging into the canteen. The chef recognized him from a distance.
"Morning Dai Li, do you still want it to go today?" the chef asked.
"Yes, food for two people, I want them all to go. And please, give me two more eggs, and I also want..." Dai Li made his order. Soon, the chef packed everything Dai Li wanted and handed it to him. Dai Li thanked him, then carried the food as he jogged out of the canteen.
The other coaches witnessed this scene. Somebody began to talk about it.
"Did Dai Li have his breakfast to go again. He has been doing this for five or six days, hasn't he?"
"Today is the seventh day," another person answered. "Yue Zhao has been training crazily this week. People say that he started training at five in the morning, and didn't come back until ten at night."
"5AM to 10PM, let me count... oh my, seventeen hours in total! How can this even be possible! That's such a long training time. To do so for one or two days might be understandable, but seven days?! That's incredible! Even Iron Man couldn't bear it!"
"Well, this is partially correct. Don't forget to subtract dining time and breaks. But he still probably trains thirteen or fourteen hours a day. Even in that case, to go on for seven days seems impossible."
"Four years ago, when I was training Yue Zhao, I didn't realize he had such outstanding endurance!"
"He has been working so hard. I say the last spot for the 200m sprint must belong to him. But I wonder how much longer he can bear such high-intensity training."
The discussion was heard by Yaozu Wang, which made him uncomfortable.
It's been seven days; how can Yue Zhao continue such training for seven days! This doesn't make sense! Yaozu Wang clenched his chopsticks tightly, seemingly expressing his grievances.
Yue Zhao finished almost every task under my watch, so I know he didn't mess around, and I know he has a really high workload. But the question is, how did he make it? Xiong Chu has been doing the same thing, but he can only bear ten hours at most. Why? Does it have anything to do with training plans?
Yaozu Wang couldn't help but think about Dai Li, and became even more upset.
Recently, Yaozu Wang had been observing Dai Li's coaching, but he had not found anything surprising. Dai Li's methods were the same methods that were commonly adopted by the national team, Yaozu Wang was already quite familiar with them.
Yaozu Wang had once thought that the reason Yue Zhao could go on for such a long time was because of Dai Li's massages. Yaozu Wang had even tried to mimic Dai Li's actions; every time when they would take a break, Yaozu Wang would imitate Dai Li and give Xiong Chu leg massages. But it didn't work.
If Dai Li massaged Yue Zhao for five to six minutes, Yue Zhao could stand up and return to training. But even when Yaozu Wang would massage Xiong Chu for more than ten minutes, Xiong Chu would still not be able to stand up.
Is this because of the gap between Dai Li and me? Although he was unwilling to admit that he was not as good as Dai Li, he couldn't think of any other explanation.
At this moment, Yaozu Wang became anxious. He was predicting that the last spot for the 200m sprint was heading Yue Zhao's way, as Yue Zhao had been training much more than the others.
Training relied on the accumulation of ability, similar to a marathon. If athletes ran one kilometer of a marathon, gaps between athletes were not very obvious; but if a marathon was more than forty kilometers long, and one athlete ran just one second faster than the others every kilometer, in the end he would have at least a forty-second advantage.
Yue Zhao had benefited from this accumulation. Every day he had several more hours of training than the others, and after two weeks his training ability would have been at least one level higher than that of the other athletes. Moreover, Yue Zhao had talent in the 200m sprint, which had promoted his progress.
...
Two weeks later, at the 200m sprinting team's in-team assessment, six athletes participated. Among the six participants, not everyone had the ability to run within 20.75 seconds, some people wanted to try their luck. The most competitive runners were undoubtedly Yue zhao and Xiong Chu.
On the grandstand, Shuren Zhao looked at the starting line and asked, "I heard that both Yue Zhao and Xiong Chu have been receiving extra training. Xue, who do you think will win?"
"Yue Zhao!" Li Xue answered without hesitation. "Although both of them had received extra training, Yue Zhao's training load was greater. The effects of short-term assault training, time, and intensity will have a big influence."
Shuren Zhao nodded silently. If training intensity and time remained normal, assault training would not have much of an effect. To improve, one had to spend more time, effort, and practice under higher intensity.
It was similar to college students' behavior before finals. Right before final exams, study rooms were always filled with people. Students would study hard there; some bad students who had not worked hard during the semester relied on this method to pass finals.
The starting gun fired. Yue Zhao got a good start. His reaction to the starting gunshot had been perfect; not too late, and not to early. Dai Li was relieved.
Nothing wrong with the start; that means Yue Zhao will win! Dai Li smiled.
Right before the test, Dai Li had detected all the participants' ability points. The results showed that Yue Zhao had the most ability points of all of them. Moreover, Yue Zhao was being helped by the explosive force halo; even if his opponents had the same amount of ability as he did, he would not lose the race.
Standing besides Dai Li, Yaozu Wang looked very nervous. He glanced at Dai Li, and was surprised to see Dai Li smiling.
A smile? How come he is so confident? Does he trust Yue Zhao that much?
Yaozu Wang looked back to the field, only to find that Yue Zhao had taken the lead. Yaozu Wang was now sweating.
"It seems that higher-intensity training brings out better effects!" a coach standing beside Yaozu Wang said. Upon hearing this, Yaozu Wang became even more depressed.
On the grandstand, Shuren Zhao and Li Xue looked at each other. Although the sprinters were still in the bend, the result was clear.
Yue Zhao had gotten the last ticket to the Asian Games.