Chapter 247: Speed vs Teamwork
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The contest began as soon as the starting gun fired.
Jialiang Zhang was the first relay runner for the Hanbei team, chosen by Dai Li.
Jialiang Zhang was not a top athlete, but he was a calm person, which helped him have steady, consistent performances in competitions. His characteristics made him suitable to be the first relay runner.
His performance was steady as usual. He began calmly and sped up as expected. He was running at a steady speed, but was gradually left behind by other runners as time went by.
This was the ability gap. Jialiang Zhang didn’t have advantages in speed compared to the other runners, so it was normal for him to be left behind.
Right, he is not as fast as the others. Although he is running at a steady pace, he was left behind. Li Xue was intrigued as he looked at the track. He was not surprised by the result.
Dai Li sighed out of frustration. He knew Jialiang Zhang was just an average athlete, but he had had faith in him, and was hoping he could at least not finish last. Unfortunately, however, Jialiang Zhang was slowly left behind, and he was the last one to reach the second leg.
In the previous qualifying races and the first round, they had met some weak teams, and Jialiang Zhang had been able to somewhat handle them. However, when it came to the final, all the athletes on the track were great. Jialiang Chen was clearly at a disadvantage.
Jialiang Zhang is consistent. These types of athletes will never fail at critical moments, but I could never count on him to go above and beyond. It would appear that I was overthinking. Dai Li laughed at himself.
The runners waiting at the second leg were getting ready to receive the baton. Now was the time to show the gap in teamwork between in each team.
Jialiang Zhang was still steady. In both handing off and receiving the baton, everything went smoothly. After the set of actions were completed, Jialiang Zhang had completed his task.
He finished quickly. I saw the Thai team in his movement! Li Xue gasped silently.
The second runner was the young athlete Yihao Wu. As soon as he got the baton, he began to speed up.
Jialiang Zhang was the last one to enter the relay area, but Yihao Wu was the first one rush out.
"The Hanbei team is in first place after the first leg!"
"The curve is happening! What did I miss?"
All the coaches and athletes opened their eyes wide. Every team were running quickly, and it was hard to judge their positions clearly with the naked eye. Normally you just stared at one or two groups in particular.
However, it was easy for the audience to notice who was the first one to take off from the start of the second leg. The distance between the starting point to the second leg was the same, as was the length of the track. Whoever ran through the relay area was the quickest.
"They went from being left behind to first place. The Hanbei team was the fastest in the first leg of the race. They were much faster than any other team. They made up ground in the first circle in just one leg of the race."
Because many of the people who made up the audience were sports specialists, they realized this.
Yihao Wu performed extremely well as a second runner on his team.
In the relay, the second runner ran the shortest distance because it was a straightaway, so it required less skill. In most cases, the second runner was the weakest one compared to the other members of the team. This applied to today’s match, as all the teams had made their weakest athlete run second.
However, Yihao Wu wasn’t Dai Li’s weakest runner. He was only worse than Dong Qian. The reason he was the second runner was because he couldn’t run the curve of the track.
Yihao Wu was like the average horse on Dai Li’s team fighting against the weakest horse of the other teams. This was "Tianji’s horse racing strategy," when you made the average horse race against the weakest ones. Therefore, even though Yihao Wu wasn’t that good, the Hanbei team would have a better chance of winning using this strategy.
"The second relay runner of the Hanbei team is good! After this stretch, their chance of winning should be pretty good." Li Xue was so smart that he understood the strategy and recognized it immediately.
Shuren Zhao, who was sitting next to him, was not a specialist in sprinting, so he couldn’t make as quick and sharp a judgement as Li Xue. Li Xue’s word were like a caption for Shuren Zhao, so Shuren Zhao couldn’t help but nod.
It was just as Li Xue had said. Yihao Wu had the advantage, and was the first one to reach the second runner on his team
"Check out the Hanbei Team! They are so fast at handing off the baton!"
"What smooth teamwork. You can tell the two of them are really in tune. That takes a lot of practice!"
"That’s right. This kind of teamwork couldn’t have been developed in a short amount of time. It requires at least a year and a half."
"I see. They must specifically practice for the relay race!"
The second leg for the Hanbei team went perfectly, and their chances of winning grew directly afterwards. It was at this moment that the coaches of the other teams realized that the Hanbei team was a team that had specifically practiced for this event; otherwise, they couldn’t have been so in tune during the race.
"I didn’t expect to see any team use this kind of strategy!"
"It is hard to tell whether speed or teamwork works better!"
"The turning point will be whether the time they saved using their teamwork will make up for the time they lost during the individual running."
The rest of the teams finished the second leg of the race one by one. Two of them had rough baton handoffs, and there were some mistakes in the athletes’ cooperation. These tiny mistakes would consume a lot of their time.
There was an obvious gap between them and the teams that had completed their handoffs smoothly. Though every athlete performed the same set of movements—handing off and taking the baton—how quickly they completed this process varied.
"It’s the third curve! The Hanbei team is slowing down!"
The third runner Dai Li had sent to the Asian Games was the old athlete, Kenan Shen. He tried his best to run quickly, but because he was already 30 years old, his body was not as strong and flexible as the younger athletes who were in their 20s.
"Their third runner is Kenen Shen, the old tiger. He is already 30; he can’t run fast!"
"They are catching up! Someone is catching up!"
Finally, Kenan Shen made it to the end of the curve.
Just a short curve on the track had made the Hanbei team’s advantage slim.
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