On the morning of August 6, in the semifinals of the 110-meter hurdles of the Berlin Olympics, Chen Qiang happened to be in the same group as the world record holder Forrest Downs.

In yesterday's 110-meter preliminary race, Chen Qiang's performance was not eye-catching in order to save physical strength, and in today's semi-finals, Chen Qiang also did not need to steal the limelight, after all, the final in the afternoon was the highlight.

It was Forrest Downs, who was excited to compete with Chen Qiang.

It's a pity that Chen Qiang didn't give him this opportunity, and after the start, Chen Qiang always hung behind Forrest Downs, with no intention of overtaking him.

The semi-finals are the top three in the group, and Chen Qiang only needs to stabilize the second place.

In this semi-final, Forrest Downs ran 14.1 seconds, tying the world record he held, but Chen Qiang knew that Forrest Downs did not do his best.

Chen Qiang, on the other hand, ran a 14.5 seconds, which was second in the group, but a full 0.4 seconds slower than Forrest Downs, and in terms of results, there was more than a notch difference between the two.

Chen Qiang crossed the finish line and was about to prepare for the triple jump competition, but was stopped by Forrest Downs.

"Mr. Chen, you must not have done your best, right?" Forrest Downs asked.

Chen Qiang didn't hide it, but nodded: "I can go faster." But after all, it's only the semi-finals, so if I can qualify, and then I'm going to compete in the triple jump. ”

And so it was! I knew that you can't just run this speed, Jesse Owens will run the 110m hurdles and not just run 14.5 seconds, you are faster than Jesse, and you are proficient in high jump, you should be more suitable for the 110m hurdles, and your results must be better to be normal. Forrest Downs began.

"I guess you have reservations, too?" Chen Qiang asked with a smile.

Forrest Downs had a surprised look on his face, and then he asked, "Why do you think that?" I just ran 14.1 seconds, which is a world record! How do you think you still have reservations about such results? ”

"Instinct it! I can feel that 14.1 seconds is still easy for you. Chen Qiang replied.

Forrest Downs was silent for a few seconds, and then he spoke; "Well, I'll admit I didn't give my best, so in the final in the afternoon, I hope you can give it your all against me."

"That's natural, in the final, of course I'll do my best, I don't want to lose a gold medal." Chen Qiang said.

"If you can, I really hope that you can beat me me." Forrest Downs lowered his voice and continued, "Actually, I haven't lost in a long time. I'm not deliberately bragging, I've never lost a game in over a year. This distresses me! ”

"Shouldn't you be happy when you win the game, why do you feel distressed?" Chen Qiang then asked.

"Because there's no passion anymore!" Forrest Downs continued: "When I first started practising the 110m hurdles, I found the sport very interesting, both in competition and in training, I was full of passion, especially when my results were improving and I was beating opponents one by one, the more I felt that the sport was not interesting. ”

"Winning too much, numb?" Chen Qiang asked with a smile.

"Maybe, in the United States, no one can beat me, so I came to Europe to compete in the Olympics, and I hope to find someone here who can win me and get me back to my love of hurdles. But I was disappointed by the top hurdlers in Europe, they weren't as good as I thought they were. Forrest Downs began.

"Maybe I'm not that good." Chen Qiang said.

"But you're the number one athlete in the world, and you've always been able to reach the world record in the events you've competed in, so I think if anyone of the other five players in the final can beat me, it's you." Forrest Downs spoke.

Chen Qiang thought for a moment and asked, "What if I can't defeat you too?" ”

"Then I'm going to play football." Forrest Downs went on to say: "If I lose my love for hurdles, there's no need to keep going! ”

Forrest Downs' expression was very sincere, and Chen Qiang could feel that he was not pretending to be hypocritical, and what he said was the truth.

It is indeed a very distressing thing for an athlete to gradually lose his love for the sport and his passion for the game because he is too powerful.

If it is placed in the next generation, this is definitely an incredible thing, as a world record holder, if you want to do it, even if the athletes themselves are willing, the sponsors are not willing. What rapids retreat bravely, what peak time to wash hands, in 2019 does not exist. A world-class athlete, there are too many people who depend on him for food, and those people are eager to squeeze out the last bit of his value. Don't talk about changing careers or retiring, even if he is paralyzed, there will still be many people who consume him!

Chen Qiang suddenly remembered the first retirement of Jordan, and Jordan once said at the retirement press conference: "I have reached the pinnacle of basketball, and there is nothing that can arouse my enthusiasm on this court." Although many people questioned Jordan and listed many so-called "real reasons" for Jordan's retirement.

Chen Qiang doesn't know why Jordan retired at his peak, but there is one thing Chen Qiang knows, but those questioners may not even have touched the NBA championship trophy, so how do they know what it feels like to stand at the peak of basketball!

Today's Chen Qiang somewhat understands this feeling, because he is also the one who stands at the top.

Since the Los Angeles Olympics, Chen Qiang has been invincible, especially in domestic competitions, the strength of opponents is relatively low, Chen Qiang won very easily, so the joy of victory he felt became weaker and weaker.

Fortunately, Chen Qiang has always had a goal in mind, that is, to kick out the name of "the sick man of East Asia" for the Chinese, which also inspires him to train hard day after day and strive to move forward in this troubled world. If there is no such goal, maybe Chen Qiang will also lose his love for sports, and then rely on his past achievements to find a tolerance in Nanjing, and live a life of eating and waiting for death, which is also quite nourishing.

"Maybe it's the cold in the heights!" Thinking of this, Chen Qiang suddenly felt a little sympathetic to Forrest Downs, so Chen Qiang smiled slightly and said, "Mr. Downs, you just said that you haven't lost a game for more than a year, right?" ”

Forrest Downs nodded.

Chen Qiang's smile widened, and he continued, "Maybe you're going to have a defeat this afternoon, because I haven't lost a match in six years. ”

Forrest Downs was slightly stunned, he didn't feel provocation or ridicule from Chen Qiang's tone, Chen Qiang's words were more like a friendly joke.

In the next second, Forrest Downs suddenly understood that Chen Qiang was telling himself that he would go all out in the final in the afternoon!

Forrest Downs had the same smile on his face: "Okay, let's compete again in the afternoon final!" If I win, I'll treat you to the best beer in Berlin! ”

……

After the 110-meter hurdles, Chen Qiang went to the long jump sand pit to prepare for the preliminaries of the triple jump.

The triple jump at the Berlin Olympics had 31 competitors, so there was a preliminary round to eliminate some of them.

The threshold for the preliminary round is 14 meters, and as long as you can jump 14 meters, you can advance to the final in the afternoon.

The 14-metre qualification standard was calculated based on the results of the athletes at the previous Olympic Games. At the Los Angeles Olympics, only 12 athletes, including Chen Qiang, jumped more than 14 meters, so the Berlin organizers set the final score at 14 meters, and they estimated that at most half of the 31 athletes could jump 14 meters.

However, the organizers of this year's edition underestimated the level of the athletes and the progress of the players in the past four years. Of the 31 participants, 25 jumped 14 meters!

25 people to participate in the finals is a bit much, but since it is a rule that has been formulated, it must not be changed, so the organizers can only allow all 25 people to participate in the finals. At this time, the organizers must have regretted that they should have increased the promotion score by twenty or thirty centimeters, so that the number of finalists would have been reduced to less than 20.

For Chen Qiang, 14 meters is not the slightest difficulty, even if it is the usual practice, Chen Qiang will jump farther than this, so he just went up to do a test jump, and after skipping the 14-meter promotion line, he did not make the next two test jumps.

Several other strong competitors, such as world record holder Jack Metcalfe, such as Japan's Naoto Tajima, Masao Harada and Kenichi Oshima, also made the first attempt, and then chose to quit the field and did not continue with the next two attempts.

It is worth mentioning that China's Wang Shilin also entered the finals.

Wang Shilin in history is the holder of the national record in the triple jump during the Republic of China, he once jumped 14.36 meters in the 1936 Olympic trials, which means that he originally advanced to the level of the Olympic finals, but when it came to the competition, he did not perform well and failed to actively participate in the finals.

Now due to the arrival of Chen Qiang, Wang Shilin also learned the skills of standing up and taking off from Chen Qiang, his strength has been greatly improved, and he is more comfortable jumping 14 meters, so he advanced to the final of the triple jump.

……

In next week's 110m hurdles final, the six athletes are two Americans, two Britons, one Swede and Chen Qiang. The German athlete did not qualify for the final. But there were no black athletes in the 110m hurdles final, so there was no scattered boos around.

In the thirties, the 110m hurdles event was still the world of white people!

For Chen Qiang, there is only one real opponent, and that is the world record holder in the 110m hurdles, American Forrest Downs.

The six competitors stood on the starting line, and there was no communication with each other, and the atmosphere was very tense. And the audience at the scene seemed to be infected by this atmosphere, and people stared at the athletes, looking forward to the start of the competition.

In the 110m hurdles, Forrest Downs has absolute quality, and his record of running 14.1 seconds six times a year is unbeatable. Neither the Englishman nor the Swede was his opponent, so in the eyes of everyone, there was little suspense about Forrest Downs' victory.

The only variable is Chen Qiang!

Although Chen Qiang is participating in the 110m hurdles event for the first time in international competitions, considering Chen Qiang's level in the sprint, high jump and long jump events, his 110m hurdles is definitely the best in the world. In addition, Chen Qiang has created many miracles, so many viewers at the scene are looking forward to Chen Qiang defeating Forrest Downs.

This time, Forrest Downs is in the second lane, while Chen Qiang is in the fifth lane, and the two are far apart, and they will not affect each other. Even if someone trips over a hurdle, they won't fall off two tracks.

Finally, all six runners were ready, and after a single gunshot, they rushed out of the starting line almost simultaneously.

Chen Qiang still uses the technique of eight-step upper bar.

Chen Qiang also tried to practice the technique of seven steps on the bar, but in the end he couldn't master it.

The eight-step upper bar is changed to seven steps, and the advantage is naturally very obvious, because you can run one step less.

Taking Liu Xiang as an example, he runs the 110-meter hurdles with a total of 41 steps, and if the time is 13 seconds, then the average time of each step will be more than 0.3 seconds, which means that he can save at least 0.3 seconds if he runs one less step. Considering that the starting running frequency is higher than the cadence between the hurdles, and the length of each step is increased by about 0.245 meters after changing to 7 steps on the hurdle, it will also take more time. Therefore, after the successful transformation of technology, the performance improvement of 0.2 seconds is a more objective calculation. For the 110-meter hurdles, 0.2 seconds is too important, which is why Liu Xiang has to change the eight steps to seven steps despite his injury.

But this technique is too difficult, even in the next generation, there are few athletes who can master this technique, and Chen Qiang's physical fitness is even more difficult to learn.

The athlete who invented the seven-step hurdle is Finland's Brugaray, who is a big man with a height of 2.04 meters and was born with long legs, so he can master the technique of seven-meter hurdles, and if he is allowed to use eight meters to hurdle, it will be a little aggrieved.

But now Chen Qiang can barely be regarded as 1.83 meters, and he does not have long legs like Brugaray, so he naturally can't use the seven-step upper hurdle.

Chen Qiang used the technique of eight-step layup, and Forrest Towns also used the eight-step upper hurdle. However, Chen Qiang can see that Forrest Downs is not professionally trained, but more like a starting habit. In other words, Forrest Downs found the technique of eight steps on the bar over time, and then naturally converted it into a technique.

And Forrest Downs's eight-step hurdle speed is almost the same as Chen Qiang's, which also surprised Chen Qiang, an untrained technique formed purely by physical instinct, can be compared with the trained technique, this Forrest Downs is worthy of being a super genius in the 110-meter hurdles.

The two crossed the first high hurdle almost at the same time, followed by the second hurdle, the two were also on par, and then in the third hurdle, the two went hand in hand.

Forrest Downs' hurdling skills have entered the stage of speed, so in the first three hurdles, he is on par with Chen Qiang.

However, at the beginning of the fourth hurdle, Chen Qiang finally began to exert his strength, because after the first three hurdles, Chen Qiang had already adjusted his hurdle rhythm.

Hurdle sports in the 60s from the speed of the technical stage to the rhythm of the technical stage, at this time athletes pay more attention to the rhythm of hurdles and the coherence of movements, the running and boasting techniques are better combined, which also makes hurdles have a great development.

So after the third column, Chen Qiang has entered his own rhythm, and for Forrest Downs in the thirties, he didn't have that concept. This is the equivalent of being an era ahead of technology.

But rhythmic technology is not Chen Qiang's real "killer feature", in the face of talented athletes like Forrest Downs, Chen Qiang does not expect a rhythmic technique to be able to defeat the other party, after all, they are top athletes, in case of an explosion of the small universe, it is really like a hanging, leading the technology of an era, and it may not be able to win them.

Chen Qiang's ultimate weapon in the 110m hurdles event is the speed of the swing leg and the speed of the lifting of the straddle leg.

Swinging leg presses and cross-leg lifts are the core techniques in hurdles. In hurdles, when swinging the leg to the ground, the way of support is different from that of flat running, when the leg is on the ground, there is a process of bending the leg, and the resistance of the forward pedal can be cushioned by the knee and ankle joints when the leg is bent.

However, in hurdles, in order to improve the center of gravity of the body when going down the hurdle, the whole support process of swinging the legs, the upper and lower legs are almost straight, and if there is no bending of the legs, the cushioning effect of the knee joint is gone, and only the cushioning of the ankle joint is left, and the impact force on the ground is also greater. This is also the reason why hurdlers are prone to injuries to their ankles and Achilles tendons.

At this stage, if you increase the speed of the swing leg and increase the speed of the cross-leg lift, it will inevitably make the swing leg land earlier, and the cross-leg will advance earlier, and the speed of crossing the bar will be increased.

The reason why Chen Qiang uses this technique is because this is one of the technical characteristics of Liu Xiang in the future, the speed of passing the hurdle is not only fast, but also the speed loss is small.

When China set off a hurdle craze in later generations, Chen Qiang once specialized in Liu Xiang's hurdling technique, and he was naturally very clear about Liu Xiang's technical characteristics, and he also knew that this technique was more suitable for yellow people, so he learned this technique.

The technology copied from Liu Xiang is the real magic weapon for Chen Qiang to win in the 110m hurdles event!

As for how effective this technique is, Liu Xiang can break the world record, which is enough to explain everything......

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