Andrew Howe.

Standing in the Olympic Stadium, Ye Qin didn't expect that after more than a month, the two happened to stand on the same field again.

Although it is only the men's 200m heats, it is the stage of the Olympic Games.

This is the most outstanding young athlete in the overall physical quality that Ye Qin has encountered since he stepped on the field, sprinting, long jump, high jump and other events are all played, in the track and field field that Ye Qin knows, the most famous should be the American star Carl Lewis in the eighties and nineties.

At the World Junior Championships, Andrew Howe won the championship with a time of 20.28 seconds, while Ye Qin was second in 20.49 seconds, and Ye Qin could feel the difference between the two in that race, which was his personal best and Andrew Howe's best time.

There is no lack of blessing of the opponent's home advantage, the cheering of the audience, and the eyes of all Italians, which is a huge pressure, but for athletes, as long as they can stabilize their mentality, it can also be transformed into a huge motivation.

After stepping onto the Olympic 200-meter starting line, even though it was morning, the enthusiasm of the crowd was much higher than at other times.

Yechin was in lane 1, and he was able to see the huge noise caused by Greece's Anasta Gusis in lane 8 on the far right, waving to the crowd on the sidelines.

When he played in the World Junior Championships in Grosseto, Italy, it was Andrew Howe's home stadium, and the crowd cheered and the crowd was focused. Similarly, the appearance of local Greek athletes in this Olympic Games can also arouse the greatest enthusiasm of the national audience.

In particular, in this heats, Anasta Gusis of Greece in the men's 200m was cheered much more intensely than he had seen in Italy, given the completely different level of the event.

Ye Qin had already vaguely heard about one thing before the competition, that is, the men's 200m champion at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Greek national treasure Kentris, violated the ban and did not participate in the medical examination, and was disqualified before the start of the Olympic Games.

In addition to the regular pre-competition and post-competition urine and blood tests, there will also be random spot checks and tests from time to time, especially before and after some important competitions, the Olympic Committee Athletics Federation will suddenly contact the athletes' coaches and arrive at the designated place within the specified time for physical testing.

Once an athlete is unable to arrive at the designated place for testing within the specified time and cannot provide strong evidence to show the reason for his delay, he or she will immediately face layers of penalties.

Kentrice's ban has undoubtedly met with strong dissatisfaction from the Greek media and spectators, and Yu Weili has been on the matter since before the men's 200m starts.

Ye Qinhuan glanced at the stands, the seats were not full, and the emotions of the surrounding spectators felt quite good, maybe because of the preliminaries, or there may be players from their own country in the eighth lane of this preliminaries, which was relatively restrained.

Standing on the track, Ye Qin gently adjusted his breathing, although it was a morning game, Yu Weili simply stretched his muscles just now, and it seemed to be good.

On the big screen at the scene, the list of runners in the sixth group of preliminaries in the men's 200m appeared in everyone's sight.

First, Yechin, China;

Second Way, Bernard William, USA;

Third Way, Andrew Howe, Italy;

Fourth lane, Madik-Osovnikar, Slovenia;

Fifth lane, Omar-Lum, Senegal;

Sixth lane, Ter-Hemki, Germany;

Seventh Way, Annino Marcurides, Cyprus;

Eighth Path, Anasta Gusis, Greece;

Among the players present, Ye Qin didn't know anyone else except for one Andrew Howe, after all, counting the World Junior Championships and the World Youth Championships, he has only participated in two world-class competitions, needless to say that he is a newcomer in international athletics, Asian athletics, and even domestic athletics.

But there is no doubt that being able to stand on the stage of the Olympic Games, even if it is only the preliminaries, this is the current top track and field athlete in the world, and for Ye Qin, the difficulty of the competition and the level of the opponent will definitely not be lower than the difficulty of the final of any major competition he participates.

There are only 56 people in the seven preliminary groups of the Olympic men's 200m preliminaries, with eight players in each group.

Even if some of them have the strength to fail to meet the criteria, or because of the limited number of places like the U.S. team, or the impact of injuries, etc., there will not be much more in this number.

What Ye Qin didn't know was that he was standing on the track and field, and in fact, many people noticed him.

Mainly compared with other European and American athletes, he now looks much more slender and thin than others, which is not particularly obvious at the World Youth Championships, but standing on the Olympic field, coupled with the fact that Westerners generally look young when Asians look at them, Ye Qin still looks very immature in the eyes of many people.

“On your marks！”

In front of the starting line, the voice of the starter sounded.

Ye Qin exhaled lightly and breathed two breaths in succession, and before walking on the starting line, he still glanced sideways at Andrew Howe in the third lane, and then stepped on the runner and leaned over and bowed his head.

Being able to go on the Olympic stage and participate in the preliminaries of two events is unimaginable for many athletes who practice track and field, especially sprinting.

Ye Qin had only come up with such an idea by chance before, which was nothing more than "Olympics!" "It would be nice to be able to go to the game!" , but really standing in this arena, I originally just wanted to participate, but I unconsciously had more pursuits.

Competing for medals and winning the championship, what He Jun once said to Ye Qin touched him deeply, but Ye Qin himself knew that he couldn't do it to that level now, and his time to practice sports was still short, but this would become his goal in the future.

Now, he only has two thoughts, the first is to run with the world junior champion Andrew Howe again, originally thought that he would not meet so soon, but now that he meets again, he still wants to fight each other. The other is nothing more than to aim for the next round.

During the period of joining the Olympic team, although the name of the national team is particularly good, Ye Qin actually clearly felt that the delegation, including the track and field team, subconsciously ignored the men's sprint event.

There are no players who can produce results, a round of tours, the focus and goal are all on the players who have won honors and hope to compete for medals, although he, Chen Jian, and Yang Yao can come to the competition, but in addition to their own coaches, they are far from being valued.

Ye Qin can actually understand this, after several years of training and competition, he has seen that the domestic sprint event is far weaker than the world level. Competitive sports, to compete for gold and silver, to a few points to rank, no matter how always to produce results in order to be valued, want to be noticed, win respect, attention and sought after, what is needed is to show strength to fight.

The thought flashed through his mind, and the electronic starter in the hand of the starter on the field was already raised high.

The Olympic Stadium, which was still lively and noisy a moment ago, quietly quieted, the noon sun shone directly on the field, the shadow of the person leaning over the starting line was very short, the roof cut off part of the sunlight, Ye Qin's starting position was just in a shaded area, and as long as the starting gun sounded, he would speed forward from this shadow area.

“SET！”

The athlete slowly stands up from a squatting position.

Ye Qin lowered his head and looked at the rough surface of the plastic runway, beyond his tiger's mouth was facing the white starting line, at this moment he was completely empty of other thoughts, and all that was in his mind was the sound of gunshots waiting for the race.

All eyes and ears! The breathing seemed to be smooth and gentle, and it seemed as if all other sounds were being cut off.

Syllable!

A crisp electronic starting gun rang out.

Ye Qin rushed out the moment the gunshots rang out.

The Olympic men's 200m preliminaries are the final for him, and he needs to be the most focused and dedicated, and show his best condition to fight for a place in the semifinals.

The top four in each preliminary group are directly promoted, and the promotion rate of the eight players seems to have reached 50%, plus there are still the top eight players in the ranks, which is already beyond the general probability, but this is the Olympic stadium, the Olympic A standard score is 20.59 seconds, and the B standard score is 20.75 seconds, which means that among all the players, the lowest level has also run 20.75 seconds within a year.

Although Ye Qin ran a time of 20.49 seconds in the World Youth Championships, it was his best performance, after more than 20 days, he silently practiced for a period of time in the national team, but he himself could not guarantee that he would be able to run such a result again.

The athlete's state is not a machine, there are ups and downs, affected by the venue, spectators, personal pressure and competitive state of various factors, just like his 400m preliminaries, he tried his best to run, and finally the result was still 0.02 seconds slower than the final of the World Youth Championships.

In this group of 200m preliminaries, Ye Qin will use his best level and go all out, but before the results of crossing the finish line are released, he is not sure that he will be able to surpass the results of the World Youth Championships 200m final.

But at the moment when the gun rang out in the race, Ye Qin felt that his reaction and starting speed were good, and after more than 20 days of starting training, although Yu Weili had just taken over his training, he didn't give much guidance, but whether it was ordinary training or the preparation for the warm-up before the game, Ye Qin more or less realized his previous shortcomings.

And focusing on the starting reaction and starting acceleration, he feels that he should have improved, although this improvement may not be visible to outsiders, and only by using electronic instruments to test in sections can he see the progress of ten seconds and hundreds, but no matter what, there is progress.

After rushing out of the starting line, Ye Qin began to accelerate and run at his own pace, and his stride was relatively smaller than the previous starting method, which was a point that Yu Weili asked him to pay attention to, his original starting method was mainly the habit of running 400 meters, with a large and powerful stride.

But if you want to lift up faster, the stride length is a little smaller than before, the cadence has been strengthened, and the ability to send hips with each step has been optimized in details.

One step, two steps, three steps......

Ye Qin buried his head and began to accelerate, this is the acceleration stage after the start, he is the first lane, there is no need to compare the position of any player, just work hard to raise the speed.

In the arena, when the game gun rang out, all the players suddenly galloped out like wild horses, and at the same time, the spectators on both sides of the arena stood quietly, and the spectators who could be quiet suddenly broke out into a huge noise.

Most of their eyes are on the eighth lane player, Greece's Anasta Gusses, who is located closest to the stands and is the player who has the most home field advantage and is expected by tens of thousands of spectators.

10 meters, 20 meters, 30 meters......

Ye Qin felt that his speed was improving, faster and faster, the noise in his ears was almost completely inaudible, and all his energy was focused on how to increase his speed.

The rapid swing of his arms and the increasing cadence made him feel as if someone was pushing him forward behind him, and at this moment, if a camera noticed him, it could be seen that although this Asian athlete was about the same height as most athletes, the relatively slender Asian athlete, the leg muscles were like steel cast iron in advance.

In the acceleration stage of the start, almost at the position of forty meters, Ye Qin raised his head, rose and gradually stood upright, and began to run forward in a stretched running posture.

Top 100-meter athletes can enter the high-speed stage of running on the way almost 30 meters, but that requires strong explosive power, and even if Ye Qin has training to strengthen his starting reaction and start acceleration at this time, it is far from enough.

If you run 100 meters, Ye Qin can probably enter the high-speed stage of running on the way at about 35 meters to 40 meters, and you can enter the absolute speed of running on the way at about 70 meters. But this is a 200-meter run, and even if he reacts to the start and starts fast, he only enters the high-speed stage of running after 40 meters, taking into account the distance of the second half of the race.

With a large stride, fast cadence and stretched body, all the players running on the curve at this time have an absolute beauty of human speed.

50 meters, 60 meters, 70 meters......

After Ye Qin raised his head, he immediately noticed the position of the other players, he was the first, and because of the inclination of the corner, it was easy for him to observe the second, third and fourth passes on the right side.

And this observation, Ye Qin immediately felt the strong strength of the American player Bernard William in the second lane next to him, because of the number of forward extensions, he and Bernard William themselves have a certain distance, but the two of them have passed a 40-meter curve, according to the angle of the inclination of the corner, he does not say that the distance between the two is now closer, but at least it should be maintained at the distance after the number of stretches before the start.

But no, Bernard Willian pulled away from him in the first 40 metres of acceleration after the start, and not only pulled away from him, but also quickly approached Andrew Howe in the third lane, constantly shortening the difference in the number of stretches.

In the fiercely competitive United States, in the United States in June, the National Track and Field Championships and Olympic Trials, which can be called the "Little Olympics" today, all the athletes who can qualify for the competition and stand on the Olympic stage are undoubtedly extremely powerful, far more powerful than Ye Qin can imagine.

Bernard William, the runner-up at the 2001 World Championships, is a top sprinter with 10 seconds in the 100 meters, and the short distance of the first 40 meters makes Ye Qin feel so strong that he is suffocating.

In previous races, he had not been without explosive speed in the first half of the race, but like Bernard William, a sprinter who was about to be pulled away by half a meter or more just a few steps in front of him, which Yechin had never encountered.

Only by standing on a broader platform can you encounter more powerful opponents. This is the highest stage for track and field athletes in the world, and just in the preliminaries, he met a powerful opponent who can be called a pervert.

Fortunately, from the international arena, from the World Junior Championships to the World Youth Championships, whether it is 400 meters or 200 meters, Ye Qin has slowly honed his mentality, and there will be no more thoughts of being unable to catch up after being overtaken.

The competitions allowed him to see a lot of outstanding athletes, and he also knew himself step by step, what stage he was good at, what kind of results his speed could achieve, and he already had this confidence in the face of other outstanding athletes.

On the field, the competitors fanned out from the corners to the straights, Ye Qin struggled to increase his speed in the first pass, and the speed was getting faster and faster after entering the middle of the run, but it had not yet reached his absolute fastest stage.

Ye Qin is increasing his speed and controlling his center of gravity, his body is tilted to the left, and the swing amplitude of his right arm is larger than that of his left arm, which is the most basic point of controlling the center of gravity in corner running.

In the 400m and 200m races, the first lane inside the corner is more difficult than the other lanes, although it is not particularly difficult, but it is still there. The curvature of the bend of the innermost lane is greater than that of the outer lane, and after the speed is raised, it is more important to pay attention to the situation that the body does not roll the road. Once you cross the line, you will be disqualified from the race, regardless of your performance.

80 meters, 90 meters, 100 meters......

The cries of the audience became more and more intense, especially at the stage where the 100-meter corner was the largest, and the eight competitors were lined up in front and back, and the difference in positions that could not be clearly seen was becoming clearer and clearer at this moment.

The Greek crowd in the stands were also hysterically cheering on their homegrown players, all their enthusiasm seemingly directed to another player, Anasta Gusse, with seed Kentris suspended.

Curves into straights.

Everyone on the scene saw the form of the field clearly at this moment.

It was no surprise that Bernard William of the United States was the first to run into the straight, and the opponent could enter the 100m level by 10 seconds, and the gap between the other runners in the first half of the race was a few meters, and the second was ...... Andrew Howe of the Third Way.

World junior men's 200m champion, Andrew Howe, although not as fast as Bernard Willem in the first half, was also impressive enough in the first half compared to other competitors.

Third place was placed by Slovenia's Madik Osovnikar in the fourth lane, who was also good in the first half of the race, running 6.58 seconds in the men's 60m at the 2004 Indoor Athletics Championships.

In fourth place was the eighth runner of Greece, Anasta Gusis, who also played extremely well with the blessing of the home crowd. He's also running with all his might!

Yechin, Yechin fell in fifth place.

If you look down from the sky, you can see that except for Bernard Willian, who is faster than the others, although the other players have a slight gap between the front and back, it is not big.

And after entering the straight, the Greek audience at the scene almost immediately boiled.

Their country's own athlete Anasta Gusses was not pulled away by others in the first half, outsiders may not know, but as a habitual spectator, they know very well about Anasta Gusses, he is a special 400m athlete, and has performed well in the 4×400m relay, the slow speed in the first half is his disadvantage, but as long as there is not too much gap in the first half, he will definitely be able to catch up in the second half.

Sure enough, after entering the straight, after more than 100 meters of bursting, the speed of many competitors inevitably declined, and Anasta Gusis maintained his speed very well, constantly catching up.

And at this time, someone with a heart suddenly noticed again, the first one, the first red figure, the same as Anasta Gusis, both of them chased up at the same time.

Across the entire track, lanes 1 and 8, the two runners were almost neck-to-neck in the second half of the race, catching up directly from behind.

There are still 60 meters, 50 meters, 40 meters to the finish line......

Slovenian Madik Osovnikar in lane 4 won't be able to see the flanks on either side of the race without turning his head.

The rest of the crowd could see it clearly at this moment, Anasta Gusis in lane 8 and Yechin in lane 1, both of whom overtook him and quickly challenged Italy's Andrew Howe in front of him.

Andrew Howe ran very hard in this preliminaries, and it can be said that in the men's 200-meter preliminaries, unless there is absolutely top strength, the kind that can be scored casually in 20 seconds, otherwise for most players, it needs to be very cautious.

He can clearly feel that the state like in the World Youth Championship final, with the help of God, is impossible to reproduce. That kind of competition, that kind of state, for an athlete, maybe only one or two opportunities in his life.

But even so, at the first 170 meters, he almost firmly occupied the second place in the group, but at this time, he sensed that something was wrong around him.

Thirty meters, twenty meters, ten meters......

He felt that his speed was weakening, and beside him, it seemed that someone was chasing after him first, and the Asian player, Ye Qin, he also remembered.

He won the World Youth Championships, others may not pay attention, but the runner-up, he will remember anyway.

And now, he's catching up. And because of his position in lane three, he didn't know at the moment that Greece's Anasta Gusis in lane eight was also catching up.

There was also Slovenia's Madik Osovnikar in lane 4, who was overtaken by Yechin and Anasta Gusses, but the white man had a good rhythm and pace to keep his pace and was also gradually closing in on Andrew Howe.

Ye Chin and Anasta Gusis were about twenty meters from the finish line, and almost a wind overtook Andrew Howe, and the two rushed straight towards the finish line.

Yechin couldn't see Anasta Gusis in the eighth lane, and his eyes were only on Bernard William in front. The finish line was approaching, and Ye Qin could feel the vague position of several runners around him, but he didn't dare to relax at all.

This is the most critical stage, and countless coaches and athletes have learned that the closer they get to the finish line, the more they must not relax, but have to sprint desperately.

In a race like a sprint race, even if he takes a breath at this time, he may be caught up by others.

Similarly, Anasta Gusis also couldn't see Yechin in the first lane, but he felt that there was still an opponent who was faster than him, and he didn't dare to turn his head, but could only look at the finish line in front of him.

Rush the line!

Huhuhuhu-

Figures quickly crossed the finish line.

On the electronic timing board on the spot, Bernard William, who was the first in the group, appeared in front of everyone, 20.29 seconds!

His strength in the first half was very strong and explosive, but in the second half of the inevitable speed dropped a little, of course, this is also related to Bernard William because it is a preliminaries, there is no strong opponent, and he has a little bit of a proper release in the end.

This is almost the same result as Andrew Howe's World Junior Men's 200m final, but at the Olympics, it was only a group top in the preliminary round. And the World Youth Championship champion's performance in this group of preliminaries was not as bright as in the World Youth Championship finals.

Soon, the results of the six groups of athletes in the men's 200-meter preliminaries of the Olympic Games appeared on the big screen at the scene;

1. 2nd lane, Bernard William, USA, 20.29 seconds;

2. Lane 8, Anasta Gusis, Greece, 20.44 seconds;

3. First lane, Ye Qin, China, 20.46 seconds;

4. Lane 3, Andrew Howe, Italy, 20.55 seconds;

5. Lane 4, Madik Osovnikar, Slovenia, 20.57 seconds;

6. Lane 6, Ter Hemki, Germany, 20.72 seconds;

7. Lane 5, Omar Lum, Senegal, 20.97 seconds;

8. Lane 7, Annino Makurides, Cyprus, 23.94 seconds;

……

The moment the results appeared on the big screen at the scene, Ye Qin blinked his eyes and was slightly stunned.

He didn't expect to finish second in the group, and in the final moments, he was still a little slower than Greece's Anasta Gusis, but at this time, the second and third places actually didn't mean much.

According to the men's 200m promotion rules, the top four in the group directly qualified, and he has already qualified for the next round of semi-finals!

He's on the cut!