The 1500m middle distance race is a track-neutral race, so there will be 12 runners in each heats, with the top five finishers from each group and the other four best finishers advancing to the semi-finals.

In the first group of the first round of the 1500m preliminaries, the biggest favorite to win the championship, Bahraini Ramzi ran a time of 3:32.89 and easily qualified.

In the race, Ramz almost led the way, and it was clear that his strength was overwhelming in this group, and even the second place in the group was left behind by him by 2 seconds.

"Well done! Ramz, first in the group, congratulations! Ali, who is also a Bahraini player, came on the field to congratulate.

"Now it's your turn, come on!" Ramz encouraged: "Don't take it lightly, South Africa's Devontel, Great Britain's Baddeley, and Morocco's Igouid are all in your group, and they are all worthy of reaching the finals. ”

"And Zhang Guan." Ali continued.

"Don't worry about Zhang Guan, didn't I tell you before, Zhang Guan didn't even reach the Olympic A standard, an Olympic B standard player, you don't care about him at all. He is no longer the Zhang Guan he was back then. Ramz spoke.

"Judging from the 100m preliminaries this morning, Zhang Guan seems to be in good shape. His results were the fastest of all the competitors. Ali said with some concern.

"Ali, you're too worried. 100 meters is completely different from 1500 meters. If I were Zhang Guan, I would have given up the 1500m event earlier and focused on the sprint, at least to ensure the gold medal in the sprint. Ramzi patted Ali on the shoulder as he spoke, and continued: "You don't get to go to the Olympics once in a lifetime, and we in Bahrain have never won an Olympic gold medal, and if we win a gold medal, we will be a hero of Bahrain." Go for it! ”

……

The second group of competitors is already standing at the starting line.

Zhang Guan looked around the track, and he didn't know anyone except Ali, a Bahraini. However, the athletes' sports vests are emblazoned with their national flags.

"South Africa, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Morocco, Brazil, Qatar, Ethiopia, Bahrain...... This group of players can have a complete range of nationalities. I've heard that Kenya and Algeria also have good middle-distance running levels, but this group doesn't. The Moroccan middle runner seems to be very strong, I remember Ramz was Moroccan, and then naturalized to Bahrain, and if this Moroccan ran fast enough, I would follow. Zhang Guan looked at Igouid, who was from Morocco.

At this time, several other contestants were also planning to defeat their opponents and qualify.

Many people have already noticed Zhang Guan, after all, Zhang Guan's fame is there, and his appearance in any arena will attract a lot of people's attention.

However, the vast majority of the 1500-meter middle-distance runners did not regard Zhang Guan as a competitor, after all, they entered the Olympic Games with the B standard.

Another point is that China's strength in middle-distance running has always been the last in the world, and everyone's attention is focused on a few middle-distance running powers, and few people will pay attention to Zhang Guan's strength.

Zhang Guan's middle-distance running event has participated in only one international competition in the Asian Games, and Asian athletes may know that Zhang Guan has won the championship in the Asian Games, but he is not from Asia, so he obviously does not care about the Asian Games, and he does not know that Zhang Guan has achieved good results in middle-distance running.

In the eyes of the Chinese audience, Zhang Guan is the undefeated god of war, as long as he appears on the field, it represents the first and the victory.

……

"It's game on! The contestants began to say in parallel. Oh, Zhang Guan's merge was a little unsmooth, and he was blocked by other players! There was obviously a hint of anger in the commentator's tone, as if the player who blocked Zhang Guan had done something that was not tolerated.

Zhang Guan did not start well, although his path is very good, but Zhang Guan is not an athlete specializing in middle-distance running after all, so this kind of thing has never been what Zhang Guan is good at. In domestic competitions, Zhang Guan can occasionally take advantage of some advantages, but in the Olympic Games, the strong are like clouds, and any contestant is stronger than the strength of domestic athletes, so Zhang Guan naturally can't take any advantage.

At this time, although Zhang Guan did not fall behind, he was sandwiched in the middle, and there was a player on his right side, so it can be said that the current Zhang Guan is unable to advance or retreat.

If it's any other athlete, it's going to be uncomfortable to have a sandwich in front of you, not only to maintain a certain rhythm with the athlete in front of you, but also to be careful to prevent the athlete next to you from stuffing in front of you. But Zhang Guan has the help of the "follow and run" skill, so he doesn't have to worry about this at all, he just needs to use the skill and run down with the runner in front of him.

The level of players in the preliminaries is uneven, there are the world's top strong players, and there are also weak chickens who barely reach the Olympic B standard. How big is the gap between the strong and the weak in the Olympics? Ramz, who appeared in the first group stage just now, has already given the answer. Ramz's final time was 3:32.89, while Australia's last time in the first group was 3:53.95, a difference of more than 21 seconds.

The leader at this time was a Brazilian from Sosa, and the South American's natural enthusiasm and impulsiveness allowed him to rush ahead as soon as the shots rang out. It's just that his leading speed can only be said to be decent, not fast or slow.

It's more than enough to keep up with the speed of the players who are strong, but the players who are not strong will have to work very hard to keep up with this speed.

According to the normal situation of the 1500 meters, this time period should be for everyone to maintain a steady rhythm and follow the race, and there will not be much change in the ranking, but in the middle position, there is one person who does not want to follow like this, and that is Bahrain's Ali.

Ali had been keeping an eye on Zhang Guan, and at this time he found that Zhang Guan was not in a hurry to follow behind, and the rhythm of the running was very good, exactly the same as the runner in front of him. Ali instantly remembered a scene at the Asian Games two years ago.

"The Asian Games two years ago were like this, at the beginning, Zhang Guan was honestly following, but when it came to the final sprint, he ran out of perverted speed and left us behind. It seems that Zhang Guan is going to repeat his old tricks again today, no, I have to mention the speed, so that even if he can't get into the top five in the group, he will have an advantage in the end according to the time ranking. ”

Thinking of this, Ali turned out of the crowd and rushed directly to the leading position, and then Ali began to speed up, obviously preparing to speed up the pace.

"Ali ran to the front, he picked up speed!" South Africa's Devontel was very happy when he saw this scene, and he immediately picked up speed.

"It's best to do this, first eliminate some weak people, especially those athletes with Olympic B standards, there is no hope of qualifying, don't come to make trouble, follow honestly!"

With a look of pride in his eyes, Devontel shook off his stride and followed.

"Ali is leading quite fast, if he leads at this speed, I estimate that only half of the people will be able to keep up." Devontle took advantage of the bend ahead and turned his head to look back, and as he expected, several players had already fallen behind.

"There seemed to be more people coming up than I thought. Hey? Why did Zhang Guan keep up! (To be continued.) )