Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Three American flags rose into the air at the same time in Maracana Stadium. The “Star-Spangled Banner” was played again.
The Brazilian audience in the stadium felt nothing for the song. They discussed the might and strength of the U.S.
“I saw an article that said that the U.S. team was affected by a drug scandal, and they in bad shape. It looks like that isn’t the case.”
“Don’t believe the media. When have they ever been honest? The U.S. team has already won two out of five gold medals. That is impressive.”
“The U.S. National Track and Field Team is deserves to be considered number one in the world. Even the negative effects of the performance-enhancing drug scandal, causing so many strong athletes missing the game, can’t hold them back.”
At that moment, many Americans watching the event in public venues around the U.S. cheered
The CEO of the American Track and Field Association, Williams, did not go to sleep this time. He waited in front of the TV and watched the competitions and matches of the Olympic Games.
When the three flags moved into the air, he was reminded of the Olympic Games from eight years ago. The U.S. team back then took home all three medals in the men’s 400m sprint.
“When did our long jump athletes become so strong?” Williams mumbled to himself.
Williams looked carefully at the three well-built youngsters standing on the podium. He recognized one of them and the other two looked really familiar. Obviously, the two new faces joined the U.S. team after the drug scandal.
These two youngsters that I don’t recognize were probably brought in by Dai Li. his Coach Li really has a good eye.
Williams suddenly realized he admired Dai Li.
“We shouldn’t let this Coach Li become our scapegoat. The athletes he chose have been excellent so far! If we give him another four years, our U.S. National Track and Field Team will be strong again!”
…
The three U.S. athletes covered themselves with American flags as they answered questions from journalists. Dai Li watched it all with a bright smile while praising the state scale in his mind.
The three athletes had decent abilities, but if they had performed normally they could not won all three medals. That was where the state scale helped. The nature of the long jump event also made it possible for the state scale to work its magic. With six attempts at jumping, they only had to achieve the maximum condition once.
Moreover, Dai Li’s was lucky today. Two persons achieved the maximum condition in the first jump. It instantly put immense pressure on the other athletes, helping the U.S. obtain an advantage right at the start. Victory would not have been certain if the U.S. hadn’t taken such an early lead. It was the Olympics, after all. It was the highest level of competition in the world.
As the men’s long jump final was underway, the women’s 100m sprint had just ended.
Two contestants from the U.S. team had made it into the final. All three contestants from Jamaica had made it into the final.
The final of the 100m sprint would begin in two hours.
The next event in the track and field stadium was the men’s 10,000m long distance run.
There were a total of 34 contestants in the men’s 10,000m long distance event. Almost all of the participants were Olympic A standard and most of the participating countries sent out three contestants.
The 10,000m run required teams to employ an alternating leading strategy to conserve stamina. If a country sent three athletes, it would be easy to generate a small area alternate leading strategy. If it were only one person, it would be difficult to do. Leading the pack alone would definitely result in one running out of stamina and following another athlete would result in falling into someone else’s rhythm.
The two long-distance powerhouses of Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya, were the strongest contenders for the gold. The other countries, like Uganda and Eritrea, were similar to the U.S. in strength. They were regarded as the second-tier teams.
Although the U.S. was only really behind the two African powerhouses, Dai Li did not plan on trying to win the run’s gold medal. Kenya and Ethiopia were too strong. The difference in strength was not something Dai Li could overcome in such a short amount of time.
The race went as expected. The Kenyans took both first and second place while the Ethiopians got third and fourth place. Long-distance events were still dominated by the Africans. A U.S. athlete managed to get fifth place, which was a decent result in itself.
After the men’s 10,000m race was the semi-final of the men’s 800m race. The contestants from Kenya maintained their form and all three of their athletes made it into the final. Two athletes from the U.S. also made it through. If everything went according to plan, the gold medalist would emerge after a battle between the Kenyans and the Americans.
After that was the major event of the day, the women’s 100m sprint.
…
Dai Li’s gaze turned towards a man not far away. The man’s hair and beard were all completely white. He was at least 60 years old.
“That guy is the head coach of the Jamaican team, right?” Dai Li asked the U.S. team leader, Donny, who stood beside him.
“Yeah. He’s Fraser,” Donny nodded.
It wasn’t the first time Donny was made the U.S. team leader, so he recognized many coaches from the other countries, especially from Jamaica. They were, after all, their strongest sprinting adversaries.
Coach Fraser is a legend in the world of track and field. He has groomed no less than ten world champions. Among them was the world’s fastest man, Kittel. I only graduated that year, and I knew Fraser when I was following Li Xue on the Chinese national team. Coach Li Xue really admired him. Who would have thought that only a few years later, I would have the chance to battle against him in the same arena, Dai Li thought.
At the same time, in the Jamaican camp. Fraser’s deputy saw Li. “Coach, the head coach of the U.S. team is staring at you!”
“Staring at me! Does that Chinese coach want to provoke me!” Fraser turned his face towards Dai Li and widened his eyes intentionally.
However, Frase didn’t expect Dai Li to smile at him. It was a very friendly smile.
Fraser suddenly felt as if he was punching cotton.
On the other side, Dai Li lightly tapped his chest and said to himself, “This old Jamaican man sure is aggressive!”
…
The Jamaican team was confident in that they were going to win the gold medal. To guarantee it, they dispatched both of their fastest representatives who were respectively ranked as number one and two in the world.
As for the U.S. team, their strength was significantly lessened by the drug scandal.
Everytime a doping scandal occurs in the U.S., the sprinters were the ones who felt the full brunt of the consequences. That was because performance-enhancing drugs worked best in the sprinters’ bodies. Use the 100m sprint as an example, reducing your time by 0.1 seconds was an incredible feat.
Even though two American athletes made it into the final, they still did not pose much of a threat to the Jamaicans. If the Jamaicans had only one advantage, Dai Li might have tried his luck. The Jamaican athlete might be in bad condition, and the U.S. could end up winning the gold medal. However, the Jamaican employed a double-insurance tactic, so Dai Li decided to not challenge the Jamaican team.
The result was as predicted. The Jamaicans won both the gold and silver medal. An American athlete managed to get a bronze medal. It was still a pretty fruitful result.
…
“We managed to win one gold, one silver, and two bronze medals. Not bad,” Dai Li was pretty satisfied with the results for the day. He stretched and prepared to return to the hotel.
At that moment, on the big screen of Maracana Stadium, a list of participants in the next sporting event appeared.
“Oh, I almost forgot that there is a women’s heptathlon. After this event ends, the gold medalist of the women’s heptathlon will be awarded. American athletes are participating in this race, so I should wait for it to be over before I go back to the hotel.”
Dai Li didn’t pay much attention to the men’s decathlon or the women’s heptathlon. The two events were important, just too complicated. Dai Li did not put much effort into them.
When Dai Li took over the U.S. national team, the Olympic Games was only one month away. Many of the new and younger athletes in the national team needed training, and they needed to improve quickly. It was impossible for Dai Li to focus too much on the decathlon and heptathlon events. The men’s decathlon included a 100m sprint, the long jump, shot put, high jump, 400m sprint, 110m hurdles, the discus, the pole vault, javelin throw, and 1,500m run. A total of 10 events. The amount of time and resources spent on an athlete’s decathlon training would have been similar to the amount of time and resources used on ten separate athletes in ten separate events. If Dai Li focused on ten instead of one, he would get more gold medals.
The training process for a decathlon event was a cumulation of training effects, it wasn’t something one could improve quickly through short and targeted training.
If it were a single event, like the 110m hurdle, adjusting and targeting weaknesses could have helped an athlete become better
However, the result of a decathlon was the accumulation of several individual events. An improvement in a single event was less significant. It definitely couldn’t help an athlete become that much better.
In modern sports, athletes were becoming more professional every day. The number of track and field athletes with multiple events kept on decreasing. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were a lot of sprinters who were also long jumpers. Even at the beginning of the 2000s, there were a lot of long jumpers who also participated in the triple jump. However, nowadays, barely any athletes that took part in multiple events. The only ones who survived were runners who participated in multiple running events. The race walker of 20km and 50km. They were likely the only survivors.
An athlete might have great talent. However, focus and vigor are limited. To achieve world-class success in a sport was already difficult enough. To become world-class in multiple events was almost impossible. As such, the the decathlon was extremely difficult.
The developed Western countries were the traditional powerhouses of the decathlons. The sport tested the overall abilities of an athlete, including the athlete’s speed, explosiveness, strength, flexibility, jumping ability, endurance,and balance. Caucasians had a natural advantage. Their explosiveness, jumping ability, and endurance were better than Asians’, and their flexibility, balance, and strength were also greater than Africans’. They were well-suited to the kind of sport that tested one’s overall ability.
…
The sequence of the women’s heptathlon began with the 100m hurdles. It was followed by the high jump, shot put, 200m sprint, long jump, javelin throw, and the 800m run. All the events would be completed within two days. Among them, the high jump, long jump, shot put, and javelin throw, the field events, gave every contestant three attempts. It was different from the six attempts normally given.
After completing every event, the athlete received scores based on the results from the respective event. Take the shot put event as an example, the scores for a 20-meter result and a 19-meter result were completely different. Even if an athlete ranked first in the shot put event, if the result wasn’t good enough, the score would still be low. In the same sense, even if athletes ranked far from each other, as long as the result was good enough, the athlete would get a high score.
The final score was the key to deciding the victor. The system made it so that if one were to flop in an event, as long as the scores for the other events were good enough, the athlete could still manage to make a comeback.
Now, the only event left was the 800m run.
Once the competition reached this stage, people would have a clue as to which athletes were possible winners. The score between athletes widened. Only the ones whose scores were in front had a chance of winning.
The person currently in the lead was a contestant from the Ukraine. Her score was 5838. In second was a German athlete with a score of 5777. Following her was an American athlete who had a score of 5702. The fourth-ranked athlete was a Russian, she had a score of 5650. These athletes were within 200 points of the first-ranked athlete, so they were still in the fight for gold.
The fifth-ranked athlete had a score of 5614. The difference in this score exceeded 200 points. It would be extremely difficult to turn the tables, but going for a medal was still possible.
The last event of the women’s heptathlon was the 800m run.
The 800m run had certain rules. In the first 100m, athletes had to run in their respective tracks, but after they could start moving into the innermost track. If the lead runner ran fast, the athletes scores would be better. If the lead runner was slow, the scores of the athletes would be worse.
In the women’s decathlon, the 800m race was scheduled to be the last event. Moreover, the groupings were done based on scores. The best eight would be placed in the same group. That way, they wouldn’t unnecessarily lose points in the end because of the speed difference between the lead runners in each respective group.
It was the same in the men’s decathlon. The 1,500m race did not require runners to be separated into individual tracks, so it was arranged to be the last event. Similarly, the athletes with the highest score would be grouped together.
The first to appear were the eight athletes with the lowest scores.
“It’s not unreasonable these eight are ranked last. It is apparent from their 800m result alone. The best time among them was two minutes and 14 seconds.” Dai Li shook his head slightly as he looked at the results of the contestants.
The contestants of heptathlons and decathlons naturally could not be better than athletes who specialized in the single event. The result of the last eight was even worse. If it were a female athlete who trained specifically for the 800m run, they would make it within two minutes.
The second round of athletes appeared. They fared better, the best result was two minutes and 13.65 seconds. Afterward, the athletes of the third round appeared. The lead runner kept suppressing her speed. The best result for that group was surprisingly over two minutes and 15 seconds.
The fourth group consisted of athletes ranging from ninth to sixteenth place. Theoretically, if their results were good enough, they still had a chance of winning a medal, so this group battled. Several athletes made it in two minutes and ten seconds. The first-ranked athlete even ran two minutes and 8.55 seconds. Based on the scoring, she would receive more than 980 points.
Finally, it was time for the top eight to make their appearance.
Dai Li used a morale-boosting book on the American athlete before spectating the race in peace. Although the American athlete was ranked third, she was behind the first placed athlete by 136 points. It wasn’t an easily surpassable gap.
However, the contestant from Ukraine wasn’t that great in the 800m run. At the end of the race, she was actually in last place.
Was she conserving her strength intentionally? That’s a possibility. After all, she leads second place by 61 points and third place by 136 points, looking for stability is normal, Dai Li thought.
However, after around a minute, Dai Li discovered that his judgment was wrong. The contestant from Ukraine was really not good at the 800m run.
In contrast to that, the American contestant was constantly positioned within the top three.
“We have a chance!” Dai Li realized.
The contestants went into the final straight of the track and began their dash. Dai Li couldn’t help but stand up and cheer for his team member.
Finally, the first one to the finish line was the Russian. Her time was two minutes and 6.50 seconds. The American was close behind her, with a time of two minutes and 7.34 seconds. The difference between the two was only 0.84 seconds, and the difference between their score was 52 points.
Two minutes and 7.34 seconds. That’s almost 1000 points. The Russian was quicker than us by 0.84 seconds, that shouldn’t be a 52 point advantage. The final score of the Russian should not be enough to surpass the U.S. Dai Li made the judgment immediately.
Now, what Dai Li cared about was the times of the second-ranked German and first-ranked Ukrainian. The German in second place led the U.S. by 75 points, and the first-placed Ukrainian led the U.S. by 136 points.
The German contestant had a horrible time. it was two minutes and 15.21 seconds. She was not good at the 800m race.
Two minutes and 15.21 seconds. Based on the scores from the previous rounds that should even reach 900 points. We just need 975 points to surpass the Germans, Dai Li counted in a flash in his mind.
Just now, I estimated that our athlete should have around 1000 points. If I’m right, we should beat the German, and we should be in second place.
Dai Li calculated all of that quickly. At that moment, the first-ranked Ukrainian athlete made it past the finish line. She was still in last place. Her result was two minutes and 17.72 seconds.
The gap between us and Ukraine was 136 points. The Ukrainian’s result is two minutes and 17.72 seconds. That should be between 850 to 870 points. If our athlete manages to get 1000 points, then this Ukrainian only needs 865 points to become the champion!
As Dai Li reached that conclusion, he became slightly nervous. The final result was not out. He did not know if his athlete could surpass the Ukrainian and become the champion. He looked towards the big screen anxiously.
The results of the athletes were converted into scores and appeared on the big screen.
Two minutes and 7.34 seconds. 1004 points, our final score is 6706 points!
The German’s result, two minutes and 15.21 seconds, got her 890 points. Her final score is 6667 points. Fewer than us!
The Ukrainian only finished the race in two minutes and 17.72 seconds. She got 855 points, so her final score is 6693 points. That’s 13 points fewer than us! We’ve won!
Dai Li clenched both his fists in excitement.
He never would have thought that the U.S. team would get another gold medal that day.
It was a bonus!
