Translator: dapotaturs
Release Date: 10/11/2023
Chapter 239: Intra-Team Testing for the Trial Squad
After Cui Luoheng left that day, Su Bai found himself momentarily lost in thought, spending several minutes contemplating his own feelings.
Su Bai was not skilled at handling emotional troubles like this. After hesitating and pondering for a while, he decided to temporarily set this matter aside and let it unfold naturally.
The next day, when Su Bai went to the training venue to continue assessing the members of the trial squad, he was surprised to see Cui Luoheng at the training facility where the trial squad was located.
Su Bai: ?
Cui Luoheng had a very natural expression and earnestly said, "I don't need to go home during this break. If I stay with the team for training, it would be more convenient here with the trial squad, Xiao Bai."
This actually made sense and was difficult to argue against.
Su Bai glanced at Cui Luoheng, who appeared completely focused on training, even though he knew what Cui Luoheng's intentions were. However, Su Bai didn't say anything and simply waved his hand to let him proceed with his basic training.
In the 400-meter sprint trial squad, there were originally 60 people at the beginning. After a series of eliminations during the trial period, there were now only a little over ten left. Among the remaining candidates, there were still more male athletes for the time being, and slightly fewer female athletes. However, Su Bai was not in a hurry. Among the female trial squad members, Yang Yi, Ding Meng, and Zhao Yuhuan were all exceptionally talented. With these three alongside Lin Huan and Lin Yao, the women's team could smoothly transition even after Chen Yadan's retirement, and there shouldn't be any significant issues with performance improvement.
The selection of female athletes for the team was relatively simple, and Su Bai had also roughly made up his mind regarding the selection of male athletes.
Jing Feibai, Hou Mingye, Zhang Jiale, Wu Tian, Qiu Mingjie, and Zhuo Yutang were the six athletes that Su Bai had preliminarily selected as the final candidates. Among them, Zhang Jiale and Hou Mingye were expected to fill the talent gap in the 4x400m relay, strengthening the team's depth of talent in that event.
With the addition of Zhang Jiale and Hou Mingye, Guo Dun's pressure would also decrease. Su Bai could sense that, due to the difficulty of his own breakthrough in terms of personal performance, Guo Dun had been under significant psychological pressure since the World Athletics Relays in May. While Su Bai had communicated with him seriously during this period, Guo Dun's psychological pressure index had remained dangerously high.
Including the current World Championships, Su Bai had been unable to find a replacement for Guo Dun in terms of pressure resistance and performance. Throughout the competition, Su Bai had always been concerned about Guo Dun's mental state. Fortunately, Guo Dun had handled the pressure of the World Championships well and had completed the competition perfectly.
However, maintaining this state indefinitely and locking Guo Dun into the relay specialist role for an extended period of time was clearly unfair to him. Su Bai planned to develop Hou Mingye and Zhang Jiale to some extent, allowing them to potentially replace Guo Dun. In addition, Guo Dun still had room for improvement in his own performance.
As long as the training arrangements were reasonable, whether it was Guo Dun, Hou Mingye, or Zhang Jiale, they could compete for the final relay team selection. They would also have the capacity to participate in other individual events to enhance and develop their individual performances.
As for Jing Feibai, Wu Tian, Zhang Jiale, and Zhuo Yutang, they were relatively young. Over the next few years, there would be enough time for their training and development. With their growth and the subsequent annual selection of new athletes, Su Bai believed that the transition of team members would be smooth.
In the past few days, Su Bai had already estimated the relevant situations in his mind and had informed these trial squad athletes in advance that they would undergo the final intra-team assessment today. This assessment was originally scheduled to take place before the World Championships, but at that time, Su Bai was busy with World Championships-related matters, so he rescheduled it to after the World Championships.
At this moment, when Su Bai arrived at the training venue of the trial squad, the trial squad athletes were already sitting upright, waiting for Su Bai to arrive for the official intra-team assessment.
The coaches responsible for the 400m event under Su Bai's supervision had also gathered. When Su Bai traveled to Doha with the team, they had been closely monitoring the training of these trial squad athletes. The assessment of the trial squad athletes' performance in recent days was a reflection of their training achievements during this period.
"Relax your mindset, bring out your form." Su Bai smiled at the athletes in front of him and said, "Today is the time to assess your training results during this period. Let's go."
In the subsequent testing competition, Su Bai took these trial squad athletes and coaches to the outdoor track. After completing their basic training, Cui Luoheng, who had come earlier to request training, stayed by Su Bai's side and earnestly observed the upcoming intra-team assessment.
There were not many athletes left at this point. There were 8 female athletes and 10 male athletes in the squad. The intra-team assessment was divided into three rounds: the first round for the female squad, the second round for the male squad (Group A), and the third round for the male squad (Group B).
In the over one month since the intra-team assessment was postponed, both male and female athletes in the trial squad had been giving their all in training under the supervision of the national team coaches. After all, for the trial squad athletes, entering the national team was their biggest opportunity.
As the first round began, the female athletes crouched at the starting line, ready for the race. The assistant coach acting as the starter shouted, "On your marks, get set," and then, with a 'bang,' the starting gun sounded, and the eight young female athletes on the track simultaneously started running.
Eight young female athletes ran on the track with blazing determination.
For Su Bai, and perhaps for the other coaches present on the field, these athletes still had various technical flaws, and their speed and technique did not seem perfect. However, their hearts were filled with the passion to strive and improve. This outburst of enthusiasm was enough for the coaches present to see their potential and hope.
Just as Su Bai had initially expected, among the female squad, Yang Yi, Ding Meng, and Zhao Yuhuan were the top three athletes who had excelled in terms of technical maturity, physical fitness, mindset, and willpower during this period. Besides them, Su Bai also paid attention to a female squad member who had initially made him hesitate during today's intra-team testing competition—Lu Xiaolu.
Lu Xiaolu, since joining the squad, had been the youngest among the 60 athletes, and she was just a few days away from turning 15. She had a somewhat delicate personality, which was quite rare among sports academy students.
This young girl came from a relatively well-off family, and she had been indulged since childhood. Her involvement in sprinting was said to be her own choice, and she indeed showed talent.
However, despite her passion and talent for the sport, her character had remained somewhat delicate since childhood, which was not easy to change. In the sports academy, she was known for her talent but also for her tendency to be affectionate and cry easily. Coaches often found it hard to be strict with her, which led to her basic training not being as solid as it should be.
She had made it into the trial squad primarily due to her talent, and her journey through the selections was largely driven by her impressive natural abilities. During this period, Su Bai had observed Lu Xiaolu closely and recognized her talent. However, her delicate personality had always made him hesitate to include her in the final list of squad members.
Trials were trials, and Su Bai's concern about Lu Xiaolu's inclusion in the national team was whether she could handle the pressure of future competitions. He also worried whether Lu Xiaolu's personality, if she became a member of the relay team, could withstand the corresponding burden.
However, during today's test competition, Su Bai saw a quality in Lu Xiaolu that caught his attention—tenacity.
In the recent test race for the female squad, Lu Xiaolu unexpectedly took a hard fall while going around a turn. Although it wasn't a severe injury, the way she fell made it clear to everyone that it must have hurt. Lu Xiaolu's tears welled up immediately. At the time, the surrounding coaches were worried and thought she might have to give up the test race. However, she stubbornly gritted her teeth, tears in her eyes, and completed the entire test race.
Despite the fall and her young age, she was the last to cross the finish line. Still, her determination to finish the race after the fall, as well as her unwavering determination to overcome setbacks in subsequent races, won the unanimous admiration of all the coaches present.
Su Bai was also impressed by how she managed to maintain her composure after an unexpected incident and run at full capacity during the race. This convinced him to make up his mind, and he put a checkmark next to Lu Xiaolu's name in his records.
However, after making that checkmark, Su Bai looked at Lu Xiaolu, who had finally let her tears flow freely after crossing the finish line, and rubbed his temple with a bit of a headache. He couldn't help but think that Lu Xiaolu was somewhat similar to the simulated athlete Su Qian he nurtured in the system space.
Thinking back to his experience in the system space, where he faced repeated defeats against Su Qian, Su Bai finally realized the benefits of nurturing someone like Su Qian. For example, when facing similar athletes, he knew he had to maintain a firm image of being cold and unfeeling from the beginning, not giving an inch. He absolutely could not let Lu Xiaolu see any signs of his soft-heartedness; otherwise, it would be challenging to handle her in the future.
At this moment, Lu Xiaolu had just wiped away her tears. Ding Meng was beside her, hugging her and patting her shoulder, comforting her about how well she had done and how strong she was.
Lu Xiaolu had no idea that she had already ended up on the "blacklist" of the future head coach because of a certain spoiled king of affection.
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Chapter 240: Final Selection of the Trial Team
Following the female team's testing, it was the turn of the two male teams to be tested. These tests didn't have any surprises. The performances of the selected athletes, such as Jing Feibai and Hou Mingye, were outstanding, but it didn't mean that the other athletes didn't have impressive performances in this final test. Selecting athletes couldn't solely rely on the results of the last test. It was essential to consider the athletes' previous performances, physical qualities, and various factors to reach a final decision.
After the completion of all three rounds of the internal team tests, the trial team members temporarily dispersed. Su Bai took the coaches directly to the third meeting room, where he had them write down their final selections and the reasons behind them.
These track and field coaches had invested a lot of effort in the trial team members during this period. For Su Bai, the coaches' impressions and understanding of these team members were the final safeguard for selecting trial team members, aside from cold data analysis. Su Bai hoped that through this final round of manual selection, he could confirm whether there were any significant mistakes in the selections.
Cooperating with this selection and training of trial athletes were Zheng Xingguo, Wang Ting, and other coaches who specialized in specific aspects such as physical fitness and strength training. They, along with assistant coaches, each wrote down their ideal lists in their notebooks and then simultaneously presented them.
Each coach would naturally have their training preferences. For example, a coach responsible for strength training would have a deeper impression of athletes who excelled in strength training. Similarly, athletes who performed exceptionally well in endurance training would naturally be favored by a physical fitness coach.
However, overall, these athletes didn't deviate from Su Bai's expected list of primary selections. The only thing that surprised Su Bai was in the male team, where apart from the athletes on the primary list, there was another name, Li Feng, who had a high appearance rate on almost every coach's list. The only person who didn't include Li Feng was an assistant coach from the female team who was entirely focused on the female athletes they needed to select and didn't pay much attention to Li Feng.
Su Bai recalled that Li Feng had an unremarkable name and that his age, basic physical qualities, performance, training progress, and improvement in almost every aspect didn't seem to have any outstanding points. Su Bai also remembered Li Feng's performance when he ran the full 400 meters, and it didn't stand out.
He maintained a highly standard rhythm throughout the 400-meter sprint, even though he faced some difficulty during the run, and his endurance affected his speed in the latter half of the race. He still pushed forward according to the standard rhythm.
Li Feng's final score was quite average. Beneath all the ordinariness, he was so unremarkable that Su Bai almost overlooked his presence.
Su Bai suddenly remembered that before the World Championships, when he first included these trial team athletes as connected users, one athlete had an astonishing willpower score of 9, which had surprised him. However, compared to the impressive willpower data, Li Feng's other data seemed too ordinary.
"This Li Feng... He's incredibly determined. It's not that other athletes aren't determined, but Li Feng is even more determined than the others. In every training exercise, he completes them to the highest standard, without any compromise."
"His performance is relatively ordinary, but his determination surpasses everyone else in the trial team."
"This Li Feng... he's incredibly self-disciplined. Besides the nutritious meals provided by the team, he doesn't touch any other food. His daily routine and training, as long as you set the specified standards, he completes them without any deductions. I was curious whether he was just like this during the national team trial or whether he's been like this all along. So, I asked his friends from his athletics team, and they said he's really like this every single day, 365 days a year, consistently."
Procrastination, that's somewhat like an inherent flaw in human nature. Completely overcoming it is incredibly challenging, but it seems like Li Feng is devoid of this "procrastination" quality.
Of course, this couldn't be the case. The only explanation is that Li Feng possesses remarkable self-restraint and self-discipline.
Indeed, the feedback from everyone about Li Feng primarily focused on his "exceptional willpower."
Willpower...
Su Bai frowned and, after reviewing all of Li Feng's data in his mind, ultimately added Li Feng's name to the final list of selections.
When the coaches in the meeting room saw Lu Xiaolu from the women's team, they were slightly surprised, but when they saw the list for the men's team, they all hesitated.
"Coach Su, is the number of selected athletes for the men's team a bit too high?"
With Hou Mingye, Zhang Jiale, Jing Feibai, Wu Tian, Qiu Mingjie, and Zhuo Yutang, there were already six athletes. Adding Li Feng made it seven.
There were only ten athletes participating in the selection for the men's team, and now seven of them were entering the final list of selections. Some coaches wondered if this round of selection was too lenient.
Su Bai didn't mind this at all. "The threshold for the national team is not easy to cross, but for these talented athletes, I think we should always be welcoming. There's no need to give up on talented athletes just because the number exceeds expectations."
"Furthermore, entering the national team is just a starting point for these athletes. Ultimately, they rely on their own strength and efforts to achieve results."
"Entering the national team simply means that their talent and hard work have a better chance of being recognized by us. As coaches, don't we hope to see an ample pool of talent?"
Su Bai's words were firm and made sense. The 400-meter event coaches in the room couldn't argue with him. When they thought about it, in the past, there were fewer athletes in the national team's training program for the 400-meter event simply because there were few talented athletes who met their standards.
Two years ago, Zhang Ziyi, who had the best 400-meter performance in the country, hadn't even broken 45.50 seconds in his personal best time. Other athletes were fortunate to break the 46-second barrier once. Now, the national record was already 44.81 seconds.
Although Zhang Ziyi hadn't broken the Asian record for now, everyone was brimming with confidence. It seemed like only a matter of time before Zhang Ziyi broke that record!
Even if he hadn't broken the record, it was entirely accurate to say that Zhang Ziyi was the strongest among the current active Asian athletes.
With athletes like Qiu Wen and Li Junhao continuously improving their strengths, and the current talents in the trial team, the coaches looked at each other and smiled. After all, no one on the final selection list had relied on connections or backdoors. They were all there based on their genuine abilities. Even Lu Xiaolu, who seemed a bit fragile in character, had undeniable talent.
As for the men's team, there was no need to mention it. Even the three athletes who didn't make it to the final list had their own merits. In the past, they would have been considered excellent athletes.
Thinking about it this way, the coaches felt that Su Bai had selected too many athletes. They even thought it might be a good idea to keep the eliminated athletes as well!
However, apart from Li Feng, Su Bai didn't change his mind about keeping more athletes. Regarding Li Feng, Su Bai wanted to try something out, to see if an athlete with top-tier "willpower" talent, along with this incredible self-discipline, could achieve a breakthrough in talent abilities—just like what happened with Chen Yadan and Zhang Ziyi.
After Su Bai finalized the list, the coaches' meeting ended. The trial team members, who received instructions to rest after the tests, didn't have the mood to relax completely. After all, it concerned whether they could enter the national team. They were like high school students waiting for their college entrance exam results, eagerly anticipating the judgment of their future.
Finally, when some of them noticed the coaches returning from the meeting room, the initially slightly noisy athletes instantly fell silent. Even Wu Tian and Qiu Mingjie, who had been chattering earlier, now stared at Su Bai, anxiously awaiting his verdict.
Upon returning to the training field, Su Bai saw how nervous the trial team members were. Instead of offering words of comfort or trying to hide anything, he went straight to the point. "Judging by how nervous everyone is, I believe you all know what I'm going to announce. Since that's the case, I won't waste any more time. I'll announce the final list of athletes who will enter the national team."
Hearing Su Bai's words, even though they were already anticipating the verdict, everyone became even more nervous.
"The final selected athletes for the women's team are: Yang Yi, Ding Meng, Zhao Yuhuan... Lu Xiaolu, the above four," Su Bai announced. He glanced at Lu Xiaolu when he mentioned her name. As expected, when she didn't hear her name mentioned earlier, she was visibly nervous and on the verge of tears. Her expression wasn't one of grievance; she just seemed easily moved to tears.
Su Bai's gaze moved on without lingering on Lu Xiaolu, turning his attention to the men's team.
After counting the seven male team members and concluding the announcement of the list, the four athletes who weren't selected and the three male athletes who didn't make it showed clear disappointment on their faces.
Su Bai didn't go out of his way to comfort these non-selected athletes. For athletes, being left out or facing failure was a common occurrence. Harshly put, this instance of not being selected wouldn't be their last. In their future careers, they would face even more challenges.
After finalizing the national team's roster, the National Team released all the relevant information, including the roster and the athletes' individual 400m performance improvements, best test data, average test data, and more, on the internet.
In the era of information transparency, this had become a standard procedure for selecting athletes for the national team. It was done to prevent anyone from using their authority to sneak undeserving individuals into the national team, thus maintaining the purity of talent selection in competitive sports to the greatest extent.
On the internet, track and field enthusiasts and the general public were highly satisfied with the latest information. Many people even started betting on who would be the rising star in the 400m event—Who would become tomorrow's shining star in the 400m project?
It could be said that the flourishing 400m project filled everyone with high expectations for the future.
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