Chapter 156: Frontline Reporter

LEE looked at the time displayed on the stopwatch.
He shook his head.
That Asian guy, LU, was simply too fast.
"Shall we deal with him?" Figo and Coro asked. This rather fierce-looking Italian had factional ties and was accustomed to solving problems through violence.
"The prerequisite for dealing with him is that we can secure the championship. Without Pete, we are taking a risk..." LEE hesitated.
If Pete Giggs had not run into trouble, their usual tactic would have been to use hired enforcers or other forms of interference during the race to target the strongest competitor, allowing Pete Giggs to come out on top.
However, whether it was the Frenchman Lyon or the Italian Figo, even with the aid of performance-enhancing substances, their absolute limit was around 10.20 seconds. Such a time was far from a guarantee for the gold medal, making resort to such drastic methods overly risky.
"This is business. How can business be without risks?" Figo flashed a vicious smile.
"I noticed you are still in touch with your former coach. If you wish to return to his camp, I have no objections," LEE sneered. "But if you intend to use me as a pawn to cover up your own agenda, I will find a way to deal with you."
"He went to A; there is no connection between us anymore!" Figo hurriedly clarified.
"Given your current state, I doubt he would even deign to look at you. Everything he told you was merely to use you. Remember, my unscrupulousness is on the surface, while his is in his bones." LEE patted Figo on the cheek. "Go out there and run hard. Aside from the championship, there is a prize for second place as well."

The second preliminary heat.
Figo Coro claimed second place with a time of 10.23 seconds.
Tian Shiwei secured third place with a time of 10.25 seconds.
This was Tian Shiwei’s personal best in the circuit so far, and he was overjoyed.
Everyone offered their congratulations to Tian Shiwei.
As for Lu Su, he thought the bounty hunters were running quite decently. The French poker-face in his heat also clocked in the low 10.20s, and the violent Italian thug did the same. These were respectable times indeed.
When the true Golden Gala events began in July, not every participant possessed the god-like realm of sub-10-second sprinters. Looking back at historical records, runners finishing at 10.20, 10.30, or even beyond 10.40 were common. Therefore, the times of around 10.25 seconds achieved by Tian Shiwei and the Three Swordsmen were far from poor.

Following the 100-meter preliminaries came the high jump preliminaries.
Juno easily advanced to the finals with a clearance of 1.93 meters.
A height that once felt hopelessly out of reach had now become a routine achievement in her daily training.
Ever since the National Games, Juno had raised the bar of her performance.
Yet, historically, the winning height in the women's high jump at the Golden Gala had always exceeded 2 meters.
Juno needed to push even further to earn the right to stand on the world stage and compete against global adversaries.

At 3:00 PM.
The 100-meter finals.
Xiao Mingzhe and Gong Aiyuan sat punctually in the stands, awaiting the start of the race.
Simultaneously, they were engaged in another task.
Using their digital cameras to capture live photos of the scene, they uploaded them via their laptop to a domestic mainland forum known as "Cape Pavilion." Xiao Mingzhe referred to this as "Live On-Site Coverage."
"Since no cameramen or reporters followed our country's athletes to witness this moment, we shall do it ourselves instead," Xiao Mingzhe felt that this endeavor held profound significance.
The real reason, however, was that a few months prior, Xiao Mingzhe had posted a thread on Cape Pavilion asking, "Who is Lu Su?" only to be mocked for pages on end. Now, all he had to do was post live photos from the competition, and everyone would flock to his thread crying, "Great master, please post a few more!"
Xiao Mingzhe transferred a photo of Lu Su stretching and preparing on the track from his SD card to the laptop's hard drive, and Gong Aiyuan uploaded it to the internet. Instantly, dozens upon dozens of replies flooded the thread titled "Chronicles of the Budapest Athletics Open."
Users chimed in with cries of "Awesome, keep them coming!"
The surge in replies caught the attention of the forum moderator, who pinned the thread with a gold star, leading to an even greater avalanche of responses.
As the domestically recognized number one sprinter proven by his results at the National Games, Lu Su had been embarking on the preliminary circuit of the Golden Gala since March, a revelation that captured widespread attention.
Although official media outlets, for various reasons, had refrained from sensationalizing the news, this was, after all, the first time a domestic athlete was competing in the world's highest-tier track and field competition—an event as historically significant as a lone Chinese basketball player breaking into the NBA.
First place in Hiroshima, second place in Luxembourg—these two results had been hashed and rehashed endlessly over the past few months. The only regrettable part was the absence of on-site photographs, live commentary, and post-race analysis.
After each race, netizens could only gaze at the start lists, imagining how Lu Su chased neck-and-neck with the world's fastest man, Powell, ultimately earning Powell's thumbs-up of approval.
Thus, Xiao Mingzhe and Gong Aiyuan's live broadcast arrived like timely rain.
3:00 PM in Budapest corresponded to 9:00 PM mainland time. Having finished dinner and browsing the forums, netizens opened their browsers to find this peerless gem of a thread. The simple praise of "Awesome" was no longer enough to express their reverence for the two frontline young journalists.
Photo after photo was uploaded to the web.
Lu Su stood in lane four.
In lane six was another Chinese athlete, his teammate from the Guangdong provincial team, Tian Shiwei.
There was no longer time to introduce the remaining white and black-skinned competitors.
The race had already begun.
European internet speeds were acceptable, though transcontinental posting incurred some delays.
Consequently, domestic netizens witnessed the live broadcast in slow motion.

The race commenced.
Lu Su seized an immediate advantage right off the starting blocks.
Xiao Mingzhe’s DSLR camera was expensive, his photography skills were solid, and their seating vantage point was excellent. He accurately captured the exact moment Lu Su and the other competitors burst out of the blocks, making it abundantly clear that Lu Su was accelerating faster than the rest.
This photograph sparked a flurry of intense discussion.
Although not present at the venue, netizens universally agreed that this starting reaction time must have been around 0.2 seconds—a world-class start.
The next image to ignite debate was a snapshot taken at the halfway mark. While all other competitors were still driving forward with their heads down, Lu Su had already lifted his head, signaling his dominant position in the race.
Netizens deduced that this meant Lu Su had transitioned into maximum velocity and entered the transitional running phase earlier, securing a nearly unassailable advantage at this juncture.
"This running style looks a bit like Powell's."
"Indeed. Somehow, ever since Lu Su raced against Powell, he has been looking more and more like him."
The crowds buzzed with commentary.
Following that was a sustained, unbroken lead.
All the way until the first-place finisher crossed the line.
The final recorded time was 10.05 seconds, a figure that ignited a tidal wave of heated discussion.
After all, a hundred photographs could never match the sheer shock delivered by this single numerical result.
"Lu Su's time at the National Games was 10.10 seconds. He's improved by 0.05 seconds in just three months?"

After uploading the final photograph,
Xiao Mingzhe looked at the thread, which had already spanned over a thousand pages of comments, and wore a satisfied expression. He edited the main post with a final sentence: "There's a 200-meter race tomorrow. See you then."
"Safe travels, great master!"
"May good people be blessed with lifelong peace!"
"Wishing you all the best in everything!"
"We are going to enshrine ancestral tablets for you back home!"
The chorus of blessings was harmonious beyond measure.