"But it"s only a tryout for the city team, your gonna have to start from the very bottom."Tian Zhenzhe"s follow up cut of some of Tang Yan"s hopes.
It seemed that this head coach, Zhao Wei quite naturally didn"t trust him.
However, that was normal come to think of it. Not everyone was as eager or as risk p.r.o.ne as Qin Hailong.
After hanging up the phone, Tang Yan left his hotel and headed for the nearby Internet cafe. The popularity and use of private computers wasn"t as prevalent as it would be in 10 years. Creating the prosperity of Internet cafes.
He booked a private room and researched some knowledge about swimming.
After reading for more than an hour and having a basic understanding of swimming, he headed back to his hotel.
Soon after he went back, Qin Hailong also called back. The result was the same as Tian Zhenzhe"s. He needed to head to the city swimming team to try out. The only difference was that he knew the head coach of the Lotus City Swimming Team so he helped him arrange everything.
Hanging up the phone, Tang Yan took a deep breath and slowly breathed out. Everything was moving quickly, he took a moment to rest his mind and calmly consider everything.
Starting from the city team was at least a starting point.
Anyway, there was still more than half a year till the World Champions.h.i.+ps next year which was the next major compet.i.tion. The city team would help him adapt and learn after all, compared with other professional swimmers, he was only a layman.
The Asian Games lasted for another 15 days. On November 27th, the closing ceremony was to be held. The Chinese team finished in first place in the medal list with 199 gold medals. In second was Korea with 76 gold medal with j.a.pan in third with 48 gold medals.
Tang Yan took home three gold medals and won an additional unexpected award in the closing ceremony.
He beat out, Lin Dan the ace of the Chinese badminton team, the original winner to take home the MVP award for the 2010 Asian Games.
The MVP award was introduced in the 1998 Games in Bangkok, Thailand. The award was recognized by the Olympic Council of Asia and the Asian Games Federation (AGF).
Winning this award meant that his performance in this Asian Games had been recognized by the sports world, such a grand achievement at the tender age of 18 years old.
However, compared to winning this honor, the prize money was more exciting for him.
In addition to a Samsung 3D TV complements of the sponsors of the games, Samsung.
There was a $50,000 bonus!
In 2010, the exchange rate of renminbi (¥) against the US dollar was around 6.8 so $50,000 exchanged to about ¥340,000.
This alone was more than he got from the Youth Olympics.
It was also because of this award that he became the flag bearer for the Chinese team in the closing ceremony.
Such an unexpected gain left Tang Yan overjoyed. Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
After becoming the closing flag bearer, he had a group photo with many champions of the Chinese team.
Especially when Chen Ruolin, Pan Xiaoting and He Zi, these beautiful women asked him to pose with them, he felt like he was floating.
He took a great deal of photos and interacted with a great deal of people.
This included members of the swimming team. Tang Yan naturally wouldn"t waste such an opportunity, getting familiar with them. He tried to build a good foundation for the future.
After the closing ceremony, Tang Yan was commended by the General Administration of Sports. Compared with the previous verbal commitment, this time the reward was real.
The archery team filed a special case for his breathtaking performance and he was rewarded with ¥300,000.
He was also awarded ¥100,000 for his boxing performance, for a total of ¥400,000 in rewards from the General Administration of Sports.
He also received another ¥200,000 in rewards from the Zhejiang Province and ¥100,000 from the Chinese Archery a.s.sociation.
For a grand total of ¥1.04 million.
In 2010, 1 million yuan was definitely a large amount. He had made nearly $150,000 from a single compet.i.tion.
This time, Tang Yan didn"t send the money home but bought a house in Shanghai.
He knew that Shanghai house prices would absolutely skyrocket and continue to do in years to come. If he held it for a year or two and then later resold it he could easily more than triple his investment.
After processing the house, he headed back home. After two days lazing about at home.
He finally reported to the city swimming team.
Different from the try out for the archery team this time, in addition to his new found fame, he was more confident.
The head coach of the city swimming team was called Guo Yong. When Tang Yan saw him, he was slightly surprised. He envisioned a slim in shape figure but once again he ran into an out of shape coach.
Though not terribly fat, Guo Yong was visibly chubby and out of shape. He couldn"t help but have his mind cast back to Song Feng and his day"s under him in the provincial archery team.
The two met in Guo Yong"s personal office.
Guo Yong looked over him a few times and shook his head and said: "I can give you a chance to tryout considering all the effort you put in to pull strings but in all honesty, I don"t recommend swimming."
Guo Yong"s first sentence took Tang Yan slightly aback.
"You are now a sports star, a gold medalist in archery and boxing, training well and when the Olympics come you"ll have a mighty good chance at a medal.
You won"t have to worry about anything in this life, with that around your neck. You"ll be set. You don"t need to keep adding things to your plate." Guo Yong said directly.
Tang Yan couldn"t help but frown ever so slightly, whilst he acknowledged that Guo Yong likely meant well.
n.o.body liked to be advised against their decision. Please he felt like he was being politely told to stay in his own lane.
"Old Qin said that you could swim, I"ll reserve my own judgement of that for later but as a quick reminder if you still wanna go ahead with this, compet.i.tive swimming isn"t like amateur swimming to say nothing else, your height isn"t suitable." Guo Yong didn"t hide his thoughts from Tang Yan, saying it as he saw it.
Though frowning Tang Yan acknowledged his words, the average height of Olympic swimmers was around 6"2. Being taller provided a significant advantage, having a length advantage – longer arms, legs and torso, gives a greater surface area to propel yourself forward with.
Even Sun Yan who was already 6"2 would grow to be a lofty 6"5.
Though Tang Yan had grown over the recent months to around 5"6 heading 5"7 in terms of the swimming selection criteria. He held a significant disadvantage.
Tang Yan nodded at his words and said:
"I understand your point Coach Guo and I appreciate the concern but I still think I can surprise with my ability....I would like to go ahead with the trial."