In the 80s of the last century, there was a climax in the restoration and establishment of a national movement in our country. The National University Games and the National Middle School Sports Office, which had been suspended, were revived, and the National Youth Games, the National Traditional Sports Games for Ethnic Minorities, and the National Farmers' Games were launched one after another.

The City Games is the last national multi-sport event to be launched.

In the past, outstanding sports teams were mainly concentrated in sports committees at or above the provincial level, so national sports competitions were generally participated in by provinces. With the development of the reform of the training system for cultivating sports talents at multiple levels and through multiple channels, some cities with the right conditions, especially provincial capitals and cities with separate planning status, have successively established their own outstanding sports teams. In order to encourage the enthusiasm of cities to run teams and promote cities to discover and cultivate more sports reserve talents for the country, the National Urban Games came into being.

The Youth Games were only held twice, and after 1989, the training of the reserve army was transferred to the City Games, and the age limit of the participating athletes was further expanded to the entire City Games. In 1991, 1995 and 1999, the 2nd to 4th City Games were held successively.

Although the City Games have not changed in name, they have actually been changed to the National Urban Youth Games.

The 5th National Urban Games was held on October 18, 2003 in Xingcheng, the capital of Xiaoxiang Province, which was the first comprehensive sports meeting held in China with young people as the main body after Yanjing's successful bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games. In order to prepare for the 2008 Olympic Games, the competition items of this year's City Games have been set up in line with the Olympic Games, and the major events have increased from 16 to 25 in the previous edition, of which 24 are Olympic sports, covering China's advantageous events, potential advantages and basic events.

CCTV Channel 5 will broadcast the competitions of the City Games live, in addition, in addition to CCTV, satellite TV, economic television, public channels and sports channels in Xiaoxiang Province will also broadcast the games during the City Games.

When Ye Qin and the athletes of the track and field event of the Zuohai City team arrived in Xingcheng City, Xiaoxiang Province, it was already October 20, and everyone did not catch up with the opening ceremony of the City Games, but the track and field competition time of this City Games is from the 23rd to the 27th, and a total of 43 gold medals will be produced in the five days of competition.

……

"Coach, this stadium is so beautiful."

On a bus passing through Xingcheng City, Ye Qin looked at the scenery of the streets on both sides of Xingcheng City, but what came to his mind was the scene of just looking at the venue before the main track and field stadium of the City Games.

"Of course, Helong Stadium turned out to be one of the top stadiums in the country." Nie Fangping smiled beside him, "This time for the holding of the City Games, the stadium has also been specially expanded and renovated, when you were just in adaptive training, I took a look at the grade standard of the venue, and the difference in the flatness of the ground in their 400-meter circular plastic track is less than 3 mm, which has reached the standard stipulated by the international competition." ”

Helong Stadium is specially expanded and renovated for this city games, and it has just been completed in October.

Although Xiushui No. 2 Middle School has just completed the installation of a plastic runway and also held a county middle school student sports meeting, there is still a huge gap in the level of fineness compared with large stadiums.

Ye Qin didn't have much experience when he was training for the competition, but compared with the standard large-scale stadium track, he could still feel the subtle and subtle difference.

"By the way, Ye Qin, this is your first time participating in a national competition, what do you think of the atmosphere?!" Nie Fangping looked at Ye Qin, whose eyes lingered on various banners and pedestrians outside the car window from time to time, and said with a smile.

The scale and investment of the 5th City Games, before arriving in the star city of Xiaoxiang Province, Nie Fangping did not expect it to be so huge, giving people the feeling that the entire city was mobilized.

"It's a lot of people, it's very lively." Ye Qin nodded honestly, "There are a lot of people coming to the stadium today, and there are more people than I participated in the World Junior Championships last time." ”

He was still a little shocked in his heart, he and Nie Fangping and the other Zuohai City representative teams in the car had just gone to Helong Stadium to see the venue, and what they saw and heard along the way made Ye Qin feel the hot atmosphere of the country's top large-scale events for the first time.

The level of organization, the atmosphere of participation, from the organization of the competition to the construction of venues, transportation and communications, security and security, as well as logistics reception, news reports and other arrangements are well organized, which is much higher than his participation in the World Junior Championships.

Ye Qin was competing abroad for the first time at that time, and it was also the first time to participate in a large-scale competition, and there was no reference in many aspects, and now just the City Games made Ye Qin feel the domestic investment in large-scale events.

This time, Xiaoxiang Province invested more than 150 million yuan in the City Games, known as "raising the strength of the whole province to run the City Games", this kind of efficient efforts to hold activities, it can be said that the atmosphere created is very huge.

Although there were more than 160 countries participating in the World Junior Championships at that time, the total number of athletes was only more than 1,000, and the events in the competition were only track and field competitions.

Although there are only 57 participating cities, the total number of athletes has reached more than 6,000, creating the largest number in the history.

……

On the evening of October 23, Helong Stadium was full of more than 50,000 spectators. The applause and the noise combined to make the whole stadium extremely lively.

After the opening ceremony on the 18th, after five days of various competitions, finally on the 23rd, the track and field events of the Five Cities Association began to kick off.

In the indoor check-in area of the stadium, Ye Qin was wearing a number plate with a representative of Zuohai City, warming up on the track, lunge jumps, high leg raises, straight-legged swing trots, muscle stretching, and so on.

In sprint races, each race is often less than a few tens of seconds, but often the warm-up time of the athletes may be half an hour or even more than an hour.

In the men's track event today, there are only three competitions, the men's 400m heats, the men's 100m heats and the men's 1500m heats.

The men's 400m heats start at 19:30.

The track and field competition time of the City Games is from October 23rd to October 27th, a total of 5 days, of which Ye Qin participated in the men's 400m and men's 200m respectively:

At 19:30 on October 23, the men's 400m preliminaries;

At 09:25 on October 24, the men's 400m semifinals;

At 20:10 on October 24, the men's 400m final;

At 19:45 on October 25, the men's 200m preliminaries;

At 10:05 on October 26, the men's 200m semifinals;

At 20:30 on October 26, the men's 200m final;

The competition is also a three-gun run, such as the City Games, such as the large-scale comprehensive (youth) games in China, the provincial teams and municipal teams of various city sports schools, key high school sports students, college sports students, etc., the number of people who sign up for the competition is a very large number.

However, there are requirements for the athletes in the City Games, and the age requirements of the participants are born after January 1, 1983, and they should all meet the standards in the 2003 indoor competition or one championship designated by the Chinese Athletics Association.

Therefore, before the start of the Star City City Games, in addition to the National Track and Field Championships in August, a qualifier for the men's qualification of the City Games track and field competition has been held in the land of abundance.

Ye Qin had also heard Nie Fangping mention it at that time in the qualifiers, but he had already participated in the World Junior Championships, and his results had already reached the standard, so he naturally met the standards for participation.