Tang Yan swam to sh.o.r.e and took a break. He held the guardrail on the wall and was ready to climb up, when he looked up and saw Shen Qing stood above him looking down. "d.a.m.n Coach, I know that you are in a bad mood but can you not creep up on me like that." Tang Yan couldn"t help but instinctively reply.
Shen Qing didn"t care and instead continued to stare at him with a smile.
This strange move made Tang Yan"s hair stand to attention, he felt like he was about to be sold.
"Tang Yan, come up first, I have something to discuss with you." Shen Qing strode back and said.
Tang Yan didn"t object, he came ash.o.r.e and grabbed the bath towel next to him.
"Do you remember Tian Yang?" Shen Qing said.
Tang Yan nodded and looked at Shen Qing with doubts.
"If I remember correctly, you beat Tian Yang with the b.u.t.terfly stroke right?" Shen Qing said.
When Shen Qing asked, Tang Yan understood in an instant. It seemed that Shen Qing wanted him to replace w.a.n.g Shun in the relay race of the 4x100 medley tonight.
In fact, before w.a.n.g Shun was injured, he had the idea to attempt to get into the medley team. However, Shen Qing had arranged for Lu Zhibin instead to take the freestyle stroke.
Seeing Tang Yan nod, Shen Qing followed with a tentative question: "Do you know the other styles, such as the.....b.r.e.a.s.t.stroke?"
Seeing Tang Yan nodded again, Shen Qing had a bright smile and followed up by saying: "I want you to swim in the medley relay race tonight, swimming the b.r.e.a.s.t.stroke!"
After he finished, he looked straight at Tang Yan and saw that his expression hadn"t changed. He followed up and said, "I just want you to try your best. Keep up as well as you can and leave it to the other members to finish it off. I don"t want to have to drop out without trying!"
He nodded and said: "Coach, don"t worry, in fact, what I"m best at is the b.r.e.a.s.t.stroke."
Shen Qing heard Tang Yan"s answer, smiled and shook his head.
Looking at his appearance, he obviously didn"t believe Tang Yan"s words.
You broke the Asian record in freestyle and now you want to tell me that you"re actually better at b.r.e.a.s.t.stroke, who would believe that!
But because he wanted Tang Yan to help out, he said nothing.
Tang Yan didn"t refute, in ancient times swimming was more biased towards practicality, swimming on your side allowed the stroke to be used for towing casualties. The swimmers wouldn"t use the right arm because they would pull a casualty with it.
In ancient times there were also soldiers called frog soldiers due to how similar the swimming stroke resembled a frog swimming in the water. The style gave you speed, low strength drain and smooth profile making soldiers less visible and harder to detect in the water. Allowing them to swim just under the water surface making it perfect for missions behind the enemy lines. It was also the oldest of the swimming strokes.
"Okay, then I"m looking forward to your performance tonight." Seeing Tang Yan didn"t seem to be joking, Shen Qing also put away his smile and patted him on the shoulder.
After Tang Yan agreed, the list for the evening medley for the Zhejiang Province was finally finalized, backstroke Xu Jiayu, b.r.e.a.s.t.stroke Tang Yan, b.u.t.terfly swimming Li Zhuhao, freestyle Lu Zhibin.
.....
6 o"clock in the evening, Tang Yan placed on his swimsuit and headed to the pool. In the morning the b.u.t.terfly preliminaries were first, but in the evening finals, freestyle was the first event.
Compared with in the morning, the swimming centre was already full. The audience had already arrived more than an hour earlier, afraid that their seats would be taken by others.
After the final warm-up exercise before the race, the swimmers went up onto the starting platforms.
The audience immediately gave a burst of cheers.
Tang Yan"s performance was ranked first among all the swimmers. He was in the second lane. First lane on his right hand side was Lu Zhibin, who came first in the preliminaries and in the third lane was Ning Xuantao, who came third in the preliminary round.
The two men sandwiched Tang Yan and formed a siege around him.
"Come on Brother Tang!"
When Tang Yan stepped onto the platform, he heard Ye s.h.i.+wen cheering for him on the sidelines.
Ye s.h.i.+wen"s 200m and 400m medley events were all over.
Tang Yan reached out and made an ok gesture, then got into position.
"On your marks!"
"Get set!"
Buzz!
With the buzzer sound, Tang Yan and the others dove into the water.
Compared with the preliminaries, Tang Yan was obviously more focused. This time, disregarding everything else, he used all his strength.
He was first to surface out of the water.
"Tang Yan"s out the blocks with an amazing start. He"s showing no holds barred tonight as he leads everyone in an instant!"
Grabbing first place, Tang Yan"s speed didn"t decrease. He increased his kick frequency and his whole figure was like a fish gliding forward in the water.
"My G.o.d, Tang Yan is still accelerating. Lu Zhibin and Ning Xuotao, who were predicted to be able to challenge him before the race, have been completely left behind in his dust."
With the commentators pa.s.sionate explanation, the emotions of the audience were fully raised.
Reaching the 20 meters mark, Tang Yan"s lead was already half a metre which was absolutely rare in a 50m race.
"Come on Ning Xuanta, catch him!!"
Just then, several female audience members in the front row shouted with a sharp voice.
Ning Xuantao had the adonis look going on, he was slim, muscular with an almost perfectly symmetrical face which was strong and defined and his excellent debut performance this champions.h.i.+p caused his popularity to skyrocketed and there were many female fans who supported him.
Hearing the cheers from the audience, Ning Xuantao began to accelerate intensely. He overtook Lu Zhibin and succeeded in taking second place.
At the 30 meter mark, Tang Yan still led everyone by more than half a metre, Ning Xutao exceeding Lu Zhibin made the effort to narrow the gap between him and Tang Yan.
"They are already more than halfway done but Tang Yan"s speed is still showing no signs of decline! No, he is still accelerating, still speeding up!" The commentator was filled with excitement.