From August 30 to September 4, the Asian Athletics Championships were held in South Korea.
The last Asian Athletics Championships were held in the Philippines. Zhang Guan also walked on the international stage for the first time in that competition, and then successively defeated Yuan Xuanzhi and Shenwu to win the Asian record. The Asian Athletics Championships were held next to the World Athletics Championships. Considering that the competition time was too close, the top domestic players did not participate.
It has been half a month since the World Track and Field Championships this year. The athletes of the national team have been fully adjusted. Therefore, domestic first-class track and field athletes, including Liu Feiren, went to Incheon, South Korea to participate in this Asian Track and Field Championships.
However, this time it was Zhang Guan's turn to be unable to compete because the last IAAF Gold League match in Berlin will be held on September 4th, which happens to overlap with the Asian Athletics Championships. Zhang Guan has won five consecutive matches The station game, as long as you win the last game, you can get the final prize of 1 million US dollars, so Zhang Guan will not give up the Golden League. At the same time, from the perspective of the national team, the ultimate general of the Golden League is more important than the champion of an Asian track and field championship. Whether it is the amount of prize money, or the difficulty and honor, the Golden League is worth more than the Asian track and field championship.
According to the rules of the IAAF Golden League, as long as you have the victory of five races out of the six races, you will be eligible to divide the prize money into half a million dollars. In addition to Zhang Guan, the Russian long jump queen Lebedeva has also won five races, which means that she and Zhang Guan can even divide the value of 500,000 US dollars. Each person has already received 250,000 US dollars.
For Zhang Guan and Lebedeva, the last stop of the Golden League Berlin will be a $500,000 game. If both of them win the championship, the remaining $500,000 will be divided equally. If neither of them wins the championship, then no one can get the remaining half a million dollars; but if one of them wins the championship and the other one does not win the championship, then the one who won the championship will enjoy the remaining $500 thousand.
Although the two were in different competitions, during the last leg of the Golden League, they became competitors. The media around the world also started to speculate, who will win the final award in the end. Many sports media and sports commentators have also begun to analyze how the final prize of 1 million US dollars will be distributed.
To this end, Deutsche Welle also conducted a poll specifically for the people. As a result, only 10% of the people in the people's survey believed that neither Zhang Guan nor Lebedova could get the rank of Berlin Station and 13% thought that Lebedeva would be the only one to win the championship, 17% thought that only Zhang Guan would win the championship, up to 53% thought that both can win the championship, and 7% of the people did not express their views.
And the views from professional sportspeople are much more professional.
For example, German professional track and field coach Ewald expressed his opinion in the Berlin Daily: In the men's 100-meter sprint, since the moment Powell withdrew from the current Golden League due to injury, Zhang Guan will win all the Golden League race. There is no suspense in the six consecutive championships. The remaining athletes are far less powerful than Zhang Guan, not to mention that they are all defeated by Zhang Guan. Also, Zhang Guan arrived in Berlin a week early for the adaptive training for the Golden League Berlin station. For this reason, he missed the IAAF Rieti Grand Prix on August 28th. For Zhang Guan, the next thing to do is normal play. In the women's triple jump event, Lebedeva has always been plagued by injuries. For this reason, she also gave up the World Athletics Championships. In the last gold league match in Brussels, Lebedeva was the one who played with injuries, but for Lebedova, the good news is that her biggest competitor, World Championship champion Smith, also played with injuries.
Lebedeva's ankle has always been injured. In the previous World Championships, Lebedeva also missed due to injury, but her injury has not reached the point where she can't play normally. Everyone can see that Lebedeva is deliberately trying to prepare for the Golden League. She went to the final prize of 1 million US dollars. Compared with the final prize of 1 million US dollars in the Golden League, the World Championship Championship prize money is only 10,000 euros, even if it breaks the world record, it is only an additional 100,000 euros.
Lebedova's main opponent in the triple jump event is Jamaican Smith. Smith is the fourth place in the women's triple jump event at the Athens Olympics. In addition to participating in the Golden League, she also participated in this year's World Athletics Championships. In the World Athletics Championships, Smith won the triple jump but was also injured. She missed the Gold League Zurich and Brussels. The Gold League Berlin was the first game after she came back from injury. What kind of states can she be in? No one can say for sure.
The $1 million battle between Zhang Guan and Lebedeva is the biggest attraction of the Golden League Berlin station and the biggest attraction of the entire series of Golden League. Since the two belong to different projects, the arrangement of the game sequence becomes very important.
The one who goes first will be relieved of a lot of pressure if the player wins. If the one who plays first does not win, it will be easier for the player who plays later. Therefore, the athlete who takes the lead in the competition will have a certain initiative. Also, the nature of the triple jump competition is different from that of the 100-meter sprint. The 100-meter sprint can be completed in two or three minutes from the preparation to the end of the game. However, in the triple jump competition, each player jumps separately. There are less than eight people, so each person is allowed to jump six times, so the process of triple jump is quite long compared to the 100-meter sprint.
In the end, the organizer made a compromise plan, the triple jump competition will be held first and the 100-meter sprint competition will take place during the triple jump competition.
...
It's finally the day of the game. When Lebedeva appeared on the runway, cheers burst into the audience.
As the champion of the women's triple jump in the last leg, Lebedeva made the last appearance of all the players. She waved to the audience, beckoning everyone to calm down, and then prepared to start running.
Running, jumping, striding, and jumping, Lebedeva was at one go, but when she fell into the sand pond, her face was not very beautiful. Her first jump only picked out 13.93 meters. This result is very bad for athletes of her level. In the previous Golden League, Lebedeva only jumped twice. Below 13.93 meters, it can be said that this is the third-worst result of Lebedeva in the current Golden League series.
Fortunately for Lebedova, her main competitor, Jamaican Smith, also had a poor performance, only 14 meters, it seems that Smith's injury has not healed. So Lebedova started to adjust her state tightly, ready to win with the next game.
At this time, the eight athletes participating in the men's 100m all stood at their positions on the runway, waiting for the referee's instructions.
"The men's 100m game is about to start!" The DJ's voice on the court attracted Lebedeva's attention. Lebedeva saw the crown that was doing warm-up exercises at the beginning. Extraordinarily conspicuous.
"Zhang Guan is also going to participate. If he wins, I will score less than 250,000 US dollars. No, you have to put a little pressure on him. The next jump must be good. I want to make a victory!" While thinking about it, Zhang Guan walked to the runway.
Run-ups, one-leg jumps, stride jumps, and jumps are still perfect movements, and the moment she fell into the sand, Lebedeva smiled on her face. She knew that her previous jump was just under 15 Mi's standard line, this result is enough for her to win the championship.
"Okay, I won! Audiences, you can cheer for me!" Lebedeva waited for the cheers from the audience but waited for a sigh.
"What's wrong?" Lebedeva looked back fiercely, only to find that the referee raised a red flag.
Lebedeva fouled this jump and the score was invalid.
To get a good result in this jump, Lebedeva chose the jump point just now, so she stepped on the line and fouled. However, Lebedeva did not realize this at first and thought she had created a good result.
The second jump was convicted of a foul, which made Lebedeva's mood more or less affected, but as an experienced athlete, she quickly adjusted her mood and prepared for the third jump.
Not far away, the men's 100m match still did not start, and Lebedeva finally waited for his third jump.
This time, the audience gave Lebedeva warm applause. Her third jump was 14.78 meters, which was already the first among all the contestants.
Lebedeva started bowing to the surroundings as if she had won the championship and took the grand prize of 1 million dollars in her hands.
But after only two minutes, the Sudanese Aldama emerged suddenly and jumped out of the 14.82 meters, surpassing Lebedeva.
At the same time, the gunshot of the 100-meter dash rang.
...
"Zhang Guan has taken the lead!"
The camera is aimed at Zhang Guan, and as the sidetrack moves at high speed, every action and expression of Zhang Guan is incorporated into the lens. As for other athletes, although they have worked very hard, at this moment, they have also become companions for the prince to win. Everyone is waiting for Zhang Guan to cross the line. No one will care about second place.
"Zhang Guan crossed the line! He won the championship! He became the million-dollar winner! Six wins! He is the fourth athlete to win the million prize." The commentator then introduced, "In 2003 Previously, the Golden League directly rewarded 50 kilograms of gold. After 2003, the Golden League was changed to the one million dollar award. Before this, there were Mozambican athlete Mutola, Bahamian athlete Darlene Williams and Swedish athlete Orson. Three athletes have won a million prizes! However, according to the rules of the competition, Lebedova's five-game winning streak has also won 250,000 dollars in the million prizes. And now, this year 's million-dollar prize is actually two people with equal split or one-third split depending on Lebedeva's next performance! "
The pressure has shifted to Lebedeva.