Chapter 45: The Guangdong Provincial Youth Championship Begins

They arrived at the largest stadium in Yangcheng.

This stadium was one of the finest in the country today. Having been put into operation just the year before last, its facilities were exceptionally modern. Yangcheng, being a relatively affluent provincial capital, coupled with the state’s massive investment for the upcoming Olympic Games, naturally led to the selection of a superior venue for the competition. Otherwise, such a facility would not normally be approved for youth championships. A second-tier venue would have been the standard.

This was the very place that had hosted the National Games a few years ago and staged Jacky Cheung’s concert. David Copperfield had also held his grand solo magic show right here. Afterward, it became one of the prime choices for countless competitions, concerts, and large-scale performances. Its facilities could be described as top-tier and cutting-edge nationwide.

For people of this era, opportunities to venture out during their school years were rare, and for the vast majority, this was their first time here. Therefore, everyone expressed how magnificent the Yangcheng Central Stadium looked.

With a single project covering an area of 240,000 square meters and a building footprint reaching 170,000 square meters, these figures were enough to leave the students from Xiangshan City inwardly gasping in astonishment.

Along the way, Zhou Bing kept uttering exclamations of awe, whereas Su Shen, having seen it all before, remained completely calm throughout.

"Tian, why aren't you amazed at all? This is so magnificent and stunning."

"It is indeed magnificent and stunning."

"Then you..." Zhou Bing shook his head. He truly felt that sometimes Su Shen did not act like a boy under sixteen of the same age, but rather like his own father.

Su Shen: "..."

"I heard that this time it's a massive joint event involving Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. I'm afraid all provincial competitions will be like this this year. We might run into Yi Xiaoqiang again." Speaking of which, sure enough, as soon as they walked in, they spotted Yi Xiaoqiang. He was with the Hong Kong delegation, and his team uniform bore a distinct Bauhinia emblem. Seeing Su Shen, Yi Xiaoqiang naturally had fresh memories and came over to greet him. Moreover, he was inwardly astonished...

He remembered that this dark horse of the Pearl River Delta Invitational was not even sixteen yet, right? He was already capable of competing at this level?

It seemed... he might have improved significantly. He could not afford to underestimate him.

"Are you running the 100 meters and 200 meters this time as well?" Su Shen asked casually.

"Yes. What about you? Same?" Yi Xiaoqiang asked.

"No, I'm not as formidable as you. I'm just here to gain experience. I didn't even make it past the team trials for the 200 meters." Upon hearing Su Shen's reply, Yi Xiaoqiang nodded. After all... this made sense. If you were to tell him that your 200-meter time had suddenly jumped from 23.13 seconds to a level where you could compete in a provincial-level grand event, it would genuinely cause Yi Xiaoqiang's mind to collapse, making him feel like all his training had been in vain.

"How is your recovery from the injury?"

"Not bad, pretty much recovered," Yi Xiaoqiang said. "I hope we can race against each other again this time."

"That's hard to say," Su Shen smiled. "I'm afraid I'll just be a first-round tourist this time. I'll be satisfied if I can make it to the semi-finals."

"It's fine, you're still young. There are many provincial competitions in Guangdong Province this year, we'll run into each other often." Hearing Su Shen say this, Yi Xiaoqiang finally breathed a sigh of relief inwardly. Fortunately, this guy wasn't that Saiyan from Wuyi, otherwise, Yi Xiaoqiang really would have felt utterly crushed.

Everyone familiarized themselves with the venue, completed the identity checks, collected their passes, did a light jog, and rested under the guidance of their coaches while waiting for the opening ceremony to begin.

Once the opening ceremony concluded, all the sports school students were led back collectively. Everyone had to rest early that day; no one was allowed to stay up late, otherwise, they certainly wouldn't have any energy tomorrow.

After sleeping through the day, everyone woke up early the next morning for basic stretching and warm-ups to ensure they competed in peak condition.

That kid Zhou Bing actually didn't sleep very well.

However, considering that Zhou Bing had only participated in a few small-to-medium-scale invitational tournaments of modest caliber, and this was his first major competition, it was understandable. Thinking back to himself, when he participated in his first provincial tournament in his past life, hadn't he also been so nervous that he barely slept all night?

You get used to it the more you compete. There was no special trick to it.

The competition lasted for seven days, which was quite generous, but once finished, the athletes would be taken back by their coaches first, so there was no need to stay behind for the closing ceremony. The women's events were held earlier, and everyone was cheering for Chen Juan.

She performed well, securing a semi-final spot early on, which made the two boys from Ningde Bao feel that they could not afford to lose to Sister Juan.

The preliminaries for Su Shen and Zhou Bing were in the afternoon. The two of them were not in the same heat. Because of the large number of participants, there were over a dozen heats in the preliminaries. Su Shen was in the seventh heat, and Zhou Bing in the eighth. The two of them could watch the strength of the others first.

The top seed in the first heat was Yin Hualong, a strong competitor known as the "First Speedster of the West" and nicknamed "Iron Bull." Standing at 170 cm, he was a short-statured runner with high stride frequency, much like Su Shen. Yin Hualong broke the 11-second barrier back in 2003 with a time of 10.90 seconds. His best performance last year was achieved in Tianjin, clocking 10.49 seconds, which already broke the 10.50 threshold and entered the National Master of Sports territory.

Rumor had it that he could now run around 10.40 seconds.

This was according to the data analysis provided by Ningde Bao on the side, but Su Shen knew very well... this person probably already possessed the strength to break 10.40 now. Because in his memory, Yin Hualong was going to hack out a strong performance of 10.38 seconds at the Chongqing Championships next month. But that was essentially his limit, and subsequent improvements were extremely limited.

Moreover, this batch of athletes basically all had the possibility of altered ages.

Consequently, early retirements were widespread among them.

Yin Hualong hardly raced the 100 meters after 2009, and after 2010, even indoor competitions ceased for him, at which point he was only around 23 to 24 years old. To be honest, retiring at peak age like this, barring injuries, was extremely bizarre. Even if a running peak was short-lived, it should still far exceed gymnastics or similar sports. Internationally, the peak age was around 28.

At his age, it was far too early; he should have been right in his prime.

Yet by 2009, his time had already slipped to 10.64 seconds, which was also his last recorded valid 100-meter time on World Athletics.

Age-tampering was wrong.

But this was not the athletes' fault.

Let alone track and field, which sport in basketball or football wasn't playing by these exact rules at the time?

These were legacy issues of the era, and they had no say in the matter themselves.

The direct consequence of this was that you never knew who had altered their age and who hadn't.

Nor did you know who still had potential and who didn't.

As the top seed of this heat, he was undoubtedly the fastest, easily advancing with a time of 10.90 seconds.

Judging by Yin Hualong's state, he clearly had plenty of energy to spare.

The second heat was seeded by Wen Yongyi. He was quite interesting; looking at his face, he clearly did not look like a teenager. Although you could argue he just looked mature for his age, similar to Sendoh Akira, there was a bug in later generations that could not be overridden.

That was... his age on the official World Athletics website was always listed as 1987.

Yet his biography in later generations' encyclopedias stated 1984. Which one was true was a matter of opinion.

Wen Yongyi entered the Master of Sports tier last year, with his fastest valid time being 10.34 seconds set at a competition in Jingjiang last year. He should currently be slightly stronger than the aforementioned "First Speedster of the West," Yin Hualong.

He ran 10.85 seconds, also advancing as the heat winner.

Everyone else generally finished below 11 seconds.

People must not harbor the illusion that breaking 11 seconds was easy. In reality, even in European and American competitions at the U18 level, roughly half of the athletes in the heats failed to break 11 seconds. It was just that we typically only started paying attention from the semi-finals onward.

By this time, the ordinary lower-tier athletes had all finished their auxiliary runs.

Yi Xiaoqiang secured a spot in the second round with a time of 10.83 seconds in the fourth heat. It could be seen that the competition in his heat was relatively fierce. Otherwise, there would have been no need to run so fast in the preliminary heats.

Finally, it was the sixth heat.

Suddenly, the cheers from the crowd grew much louder because the reigning youth record holder was about to take the stage.

The current number one sprinting genius in the country.

Zhao Haohuan.

Although he waved to the crowd, his face remained devoid of any smile.

That was fine, though; people weren't here to watch him flash silly grins, as long as he ran well.

Not to mention Zhou Bing, who looked thrilled, even Su Shen was watching Zhao Haohuan run for the very first time in earnest.

Back when Su Shen entered the sport later on, Zhao Haohuan had already retired, so he had never witnessed him in person.

Seeing Su Shen finally start watching intently, Zhou Bing thought to himself that even Su Shen couldn't remain calm in the face of the "Number One Genius."

"Bang————"

The starter's pistol sounded, and Su Shen's pupils contracted slightly.

"Zhao Haohuan takes the lead."

"Zhao Haohuan's start is very good."

"Living up to his reputation as the number one teenage genius, he has already left the others far behind."

"Brilliant! Zhao Haohuan crosses the finish line in first place without a doubt, with a time of 10.66 seconds—currently the highest in the preliminaries!"

Listening to Zhou Bing beside him loudly cheering for his idol, Su Shen stared at that receding figure and slowly frowned.

Because he had discovered a problem.

This number one domestic genius was... panting.

And it wasn't just ordinary panting; he seemed to be breathing quite heavily.

That indicated one thing: during this run, he hadn't conserved as much energy as the top seeds in the previous heats.

Su Shen recalled carefully and realized that this year might very well be the year Zhao Haohuan fell from his pedestal.

Starting this year, he would never again run at a Master of Sports level.

The so-called number one genius was about to completely fall from grace in 2005.