It’s true that Dai Li hoped Shawn Ford to win the championship, because it was not just an honor, but a business opportunity.
Dai Li and Shawn Ford signed a revenue-sharing training contract. To be brief, if Ford could obtain more advertising sponsorship, then Dai Li would get more shared revenue. Athletes’ endorsements income was related with their reputation, the best way to promote reputation was to get better performance, and athletes’ reputation would become more famous if they got more titles and more recognition of the audience
But Alexander and Dai Li signed an ordinary training contract, although Dai Li had high salary, it was not revenue share. For Dai Li, it would be much better if Alexander could win the championship, but it didn’t matter if Alexander couldn’t win the championship. As long as he could get a good result, it was enough to prove Dai Li’s training was effective.
The contestants of 200-meter race was slightly fewer than that of 100-meter race, and so was the number of the rounds, but it was more competitive than 100-meter race. It’s just that Shawn Ford has an absolute advantage, so he could easily pass the preliminary and repecharge without trying his best.
Shawn Ford began to take it serious in the semifinals, and he finally made it to the final with the best results in the group.
The 200-meter final was scheduled for the final day of the Olympic trials, and it was the finale of this Olympic, and this day happens to be the weekend. So, the stadium was already full of audiences and the television rating was greatly improved, which was obviously good news for the 200-meter final.
In general, the finale of large-scale track and field events is the relay race, but the track and field events in the US were signed up by individuals, so there would be no such team events as relay race.
The athletes’ locker room was empty, after all, there was only one race left and only eight athletes participated in the race, so there were only about 20 people, including coaches, in the locker room.
Foster, who come from Boston, is probably one of the most celebrated players among these contestants. As a 25 years old sprinter, he was at the peak of his career, and sprinters at the age of 25 are often the strongest.
In the 100-meter sprint three days ago, Foster was second only to Warton and Alexander, he won the bronze medal, and got the qualification places of the 100-meter sprint, which was the proof of his strength. Today he had to fight for the qualification places of the 200-meter sprint. Since neither Alexander nor Warton have participated in the 200-meter sprint, so Foster would be the only player in the US to participated both the 100-meter and 200-meter sprint once he was in the top three.
At this point, Foster was sitting on the bench and lacing up his running shoes, his coach stood by and whispered something to him.
“You have to keep an eye on Mayer, although he didn’t make it to the final of the 100-meter sprint, he was very good at the curve, so he has a strong strength in the 200-meter sprint. His advantage was exactly your weakness, so if you fall behind him on the curve, do not be panic and try your best to sprint forward. Come on, with your strength in the 100-meter, you can beat him and win the championship!”
Foster nodded and asked, “I heard there was a champion of the World Championship in the final?”
“You mean Shawn Ford! I haven’t seen him on the field for a long time, I thought he was retired. Anyway, when he won the championship in the World Championship, you didn’t become a professional athlete, did you?” Foster’s coach asked.
“I was in high school at that time, I was in the senior grade four and I was preparing for the college entrance interview. I wanted to go to a good college, where I could get the full scholarship, so I didn’t pay attention to the World Championship that year,” then he continued to ask, “Should I pay special attention to Shawn Ford? After all, he was once the champion of the World Championship, he should be strong in the 200-meter sprint.”
“Strong? Then why didn’t you meet him in the race in recent two years?” Foster’s coach smiled, “you don’t have to pay attention to him at all, he hasn’t got any good results after the World Championship, and he only participated in some small unknown races in recent years. Thus, many people knew that he won the World Championship just with good luck. I remembered that someone gave him a nickname a few years ago, but it was known by only a few people. Can you guess what the nickname is?”
“What is it?” asked Foster.
“The worst champion of the World Championship ever!” Foster’s coach replied with a smile, “so you don’t have to worry about him, he has no strength at all. It was said that he finished a race within 20 second in Miami a few days ago, but he can’t so lucky every day!”
Shawn Ford took a deep breath, and there was a kook of enjoyment on his face, the atmosphere of the final gave him a thrill.
He hasn’t appeared in the final of such a large-scale track and field event for a long time.
There were not so many 200-meter races, so Ford also took part in 100-meter races in recent years. But due to the disadvantage caused by his leg length discrepancy, he couldn’t participate in any large-scale track and field events. So, he had to participated in some unknown races. Just like in computer games, you had to go to low-level dung eons when you only had a low level and bad equipment.
But it was Ford who was forced to participate in these unknown races that gave him the chance to be seen by Dai Li.
Even though Ford was now in the final of the Olympic trials, he was still the least impressive, he hasn’t achieved any good results for many years. His name was no longer known to people, those audiences who knew him has already forgotten him, and these new audiences would not recognize him as a former champion of the World Championship.
Sebastian, a coach who has always been active on the front lines of track and field. When he heard the name of Ford, he had to spend a long time to recall who Ford is. So, it was reasonable for these common audiences to forget Ford.
On both sides of the track, most of Ford’s opponents looked at him with a curious eye. They didn’t understand how Ford made it to the final. The so-called the worst champion of the World Championship ever, who has been out of date for many years,
Ford was at peace of mind. The previous champion of the World Championship was now worthless. He has been used to being questioned and ridiculed by others over the past years. More often than not, he even wants to be forgotten by others, at least, people would not look at him with strange eyes.
But accustomed of being questioned and ridiculed by others didn’t mean he had to make compromise, and it didn’t also mean he had to give up himself.
Ford has always wanted to prove himself with his strength, he wanted to be focused by others again, and he wanted to say to everyone: I’m back!
Ford has been working hard for it. Even though his efforts never paid off, he kept insisting, and he never thought about giving up.
But today, he finally got a chance to prove himself again.