Chapter 150: Pride
Luxembourg Athletics Grand Prix, 100-meter preliminaries.
Ready!
GO!
This was the most desperate start of Suo Lu's career.
The momentum-gathering passive skill had been primed for nearly thirty seconds.
The weather, temperature, and wind speed were all ideal, and Suo Lu's stamina was in top form at "86/100."
Blessed by the Glass Crown, his start was at its absolute peak.
Yet, by the third step after launching,
Suo Lu felt an explosive surge of power bearing down upon him from the rear right.
His acute perception told him it was an irresistible tidal wave.
Fifth step.
Powell had already overtaken Suo Lu.
Right now, Suo Lu had only one thought: Holy crap, the pressure is immense!
How on earth could this guy run so fast right out of the blocks?
A few distracting thoughts flashed and vanished. Suo Lu lowered his head and sprinted forward with all his might, but now he could only chase desperately after that figure resembling a fierce tiger rushing down a mountain.
On the 100-meter track, Suo Lu rarely experienced such an absolute disadvantage.
...
"Too fast..."
Lu Jinrong and Tian Shiwei, waiting by the sidelines, watched the race intently.
They knew how fast Suo Lu was.
In 2005, this belonged to Suo Lu's era domestically—a hexagonal warrior and National Games grand slam champion. That meant on the 100-meter tracks across China, all other athletes could only ever see Suo Lu's back.
Yet in this preliminary heat, during the first half—even right at the start—Suo Lu was left behind by Powell. Of course, it wasn't just Suo Lu; every other runner was left behind by Powell. Powell's first half was overwhelmingly powerful, truly terrifying.
Watching Suo Lu give chase unyieldingly, Lu Jinrong felt both shocked and proud, because a domestic athlete was finally competing shoulder-to-shoulder with the fastest person on earth on the 100-meter track.
...
This race against Powell.
For Suo Lu, the first half was the most agonizing.
Right up to the sixty or seventy-meter mark, Suo Lu endured the pain and torment of being left behind no matter how hard he tried. This kind of pain and torment, ever since Suo Lu acquired the Glass Crown, was something he usually inflicted on others; now Powell was returning it in kind.
Past seventy meters, things felt much better. The advantage Powell established in the first half was unshakable by this stage, leaving the other runners four or five body lengths behind. But in the second half, between seventy and one hundred meters, Powell's dominance was no longer flawless.
Suo Lu could even feel the distance between them closing bit by bit.
Pity that the 100-meter track was only this long.
Suo Lu crossed the finish line second with his head down.
...
The spectators in the stands burst into applause for this 100-meter showdown.
Soon, the electronic scoreboard displayed the results.
"Asafa Powell, Jamaica, 9.90"
"Suo Lu, CHN, 10.06"
...
"Huh?"
A young male spectator with black hair and yellow skin in the stands stared at the name on the big screen and abruptly nudged his female companion, pointing at it. "Look, there's a Chinese athlete here!"
"Ah?" The young woman beside him, sharing the same hair color and skin tone, also noticed the name. "LU SUO? Suo Lu? Judging by the name, he really is from the mainland."
"A mainland athlete participating in the 100-meter race?" The young man expressed his astonishment. Although they had noticed the Asian runner on the track earlier, they hadn't expected him to be from the mainland.
This couple was named Xiao Mingzhong and Gong Aiyuan, both international students at the University of Luxembourg. Students studying at such a university generally met two conditions: poor academic grades and wealthy family backgrounds.
Xiao Mingzhong and Gong Aiyuan were particularly passionate sports fans, which was why they were following this athletics grand prix. Originally, they had come to witness the elegance of the world's fastest man in the 100-meter dash, never expecting to encounter an athlete from the mainland.
Yet this athlete named "Suo Lu" had never been heard of before.
And yet he managed to chase after Powell and finish second!
Simply amazing!
10.06 seconds—that was a time they had never heard of any mainland athlete achieving!
It felt as rare as a towering ancient tree suddenly sprouting in the middle of a desert!
...
It wasn't just the mainland couple who noticed Suo Lu's result; the reporters present did too. For an athlete to run 10.06 seconds was earth-shattering!
Countless camera lenses turned to focus on the oriental boy whose height was half a head shorter than the world record holder, Powell.
...
The preliminaries came to an end.
Suo Lu naturally advanced smoothly.
Powell also cast a few extra glances at this oriental man.
Suo Lu intended to exchange a few words with him and study how Powell managed to run such an explosive first half, but the language barrier meant they could only communicate through mutual glances.
Powell: You run well.
Suo Lu: You run really fast.
...
Meanwhile, Lu Jinrong pressed the send button on his phone.
He forwarded a message reading "10.06 seconds, second in the preliminaries" back home to Guan Zhaoyue.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon in China.
In his office, Guan Zhaoyue received the message, slammed his desk with a loud thwack, and burst into three hearty laughs, nearly startling Shen Yingying, who shared the same office, into tears.
...
The second heat of the preliminaries.
Tian Shiwei ran 10.26 seconds, placing fourth and narrowly advancing to the final—a pacing rhythm identical to the Hiroshima Athletics Open.
Yet the finalists this time could truly be described as "abounding with mighty contenders."
...
15:30 in the afternoon.
The Luxembourg Athletics Grand Prix 100-meter final was about to commence.
This time, Suo Lu and Powell were still in adjacent lanes.
Except Powell was in lane four, while Suo Lu had moved to lane five instead of lane three, proving that the two of them were the fastest runners from the preliminaries.
Suo Lu kept pondering how Powell managed to run the way he did.
Powell, on the other hand, appeared quite relaxed.
In today's competition, he was at his absolute peak. The 9.90 seconds he casually clocked was an uncrossable chasm for the other athletes.
"He must be going all out with an 'explosion' right at the start, right?" Suo Lu muttered to himself, casting a glance at Powell beside him, the world's number one, recalling Powell's starting technique.
That was truly a form of "violent aesthetics."
Establishing his leading edge right at the starting phase—even if his stamina faded in the later stages, it was thoroughly spectacular.
So Suo Lu wanted to try it as well.
...
Crack!
The starter's pistol sounded.
The final began.
As Powell repeated his infallible, world-shattering "Powell-style first-half run," he suddenly discovered that the runner in the adjacent lane was actually keeping pace with him.
Ten meters.
Twenty meters.
Thirty meters.
He couldn't shake him off.
Feeling the pressure bearing down from his right side, Powell began to take it seriously. Power erupted within his body, and his footstrikes grew more forceful and resolute, causing the pressure behind him to begin receding further and further away.
...
"Chase! Chase, chase, chase!"
Xiao Mingzhong in the stands witnessed a bizarre spectacle.
Powell, renowned as the undisputed king of the first half of the race, failed to shake off the mainland athlete "Suo Lu" during the starting phase. "Suo Lu" was clinging tightly to Powell as if he were glued to him.
This sight was truly astonishing, because Powell and "Suo Lu" seemed like conjoined twins, leaving the rest of the field four or five strides behind.
Xiao Mingzhong couldn't help but burst into shouts. For no particular reason, simply because they shared the same yellow face and dark eyes—for a sports fan, watching an athlete from one's own country contend head-to-head with the world's top sprinters on the 100-meter track of the World Athletics Grand Prix was the utmost glory!