IBABS Chapter 71.2 — Japan Indoor Invitational 60m Hurdles Final

In modern official competitions, starting from national-level meets, the rules basically use the zero-tolerance false start rule, meaning one false start results in immediate disqualification, unlike competitions from many years ago when athletes not only had to compete on starting reaction times but also had to be careful not to be mentally disrupted by other countries’ athletes using false start tactics.

Because of the zero false start rule, false starts rarely occur in official major competitions, but when they do happen, they still have a psychological impact on the other athletes in the race.

In the commentary booth, Ishida Ippei was also explaining matters related to false starts: “Everyone! A false start has occurred! This is a major event that will affect the athletes’ starting speed! The intimidation from the three Chinese demon kings has already created enormous pressure in the hearts of the finalists, forcing one of them to choose the long-forgotten false start tactic! Now, the athlete who false started has been disqualified, and for the seven remaining athletes on the track, the real test is just about to begin… At this moment when someone has been disqualified for a false start, do the athletes still dare to start at their fastest possible speed?”

What Ishida Ippei said was also what Ye Jun was worried about. He looked at Su Zhe and Zhou Tianjue to see if any signs of nervousness appeared on their faces, but to his surprise, neither Zhou Tianjue nor Su Zhe showed any particular tension about this.

Zhou Tianjue might be naturally thick-skinned about such things, while Su Zhe, when he first participated in an official competition, had encountered Deng Wei who deliberately used false start tactics taking advantage of the provincial games’ two-gun system rules.

If a cheap psychological tactic hadn’t worked on him then, it certainly wouldn’t now, when he had gradually accumulated competition experience.

When the remaining seven finalists crouched down at the starting line again, the venue became quiet once more. Everyone felt nervous – with the first athlete’s false start violation, could the remaining athletes still start normally?

This answer was soon revealed before everyone’s eyes.

“Bang!”

After the gunshot rang out again, Su Zhe still pushed off without hesitation, stepping on the starting blocks and bursting forward at the sound!

His gun reaction speed of just 0.128 seconds showed his stable mental state. He wasn’t affected at all by the previous violation.

Like Su Zhe, Zhou Tianjue’s gun reaction speed was also extremely fast. His 0.138-second reaction time ranked second among all the athletes, followed closely by Ye Jun who was equally stable.

Just as Ishida Ippei had worried, Su Zhe, Zhou Tianjue, and Ye Jun still performed at their strongest level in this race!

Japan’s sole representative, Endo Tatsurou, reacted slightly slower off the blocks, but the deafening cheers from the home crowd ignited his fighting spirit.

This was his nation. His stage. He refused to let his people down.

Though his start lagged by a fraction, Endo’s explosive acceleration quickly compensated. After quickly raising his upper body, he began accelerating forward. Beside him, Su Zhe and Zhou Tianjue were only less than one body length ahead of him!

There was still a chance!

Su Zhe and Zhou Tianjue didn’t pay attention to the movement behind them or on their left and right sides. They both focused on their own lanes and the finish line ahead, constantly sprinting forward.

Zhou Tianjue’s height advantage and explosive power advantage let him quickly make up for the slight speed loss from his gun reaction being a bit slower than Su Zhe’s in the pre-hurdle phase. Before the first hurdle, he arrived first, but Su Zhe’s speed wasn’t losing to him at all!

At the first hurdle, the two almost simultaneously lifted their takeoff legs, pushed off the ground, raised their swing legs, and flew over the hurdle!

Beautiful hurdle attack!

Whether it was Su Zhe or Zhou Tianjue, both had extremely refined hurdle attack techniques. Even though Zhou Tianjue looked tall and big, his hurdle attack technique had become very precise in all technical details under Lü Fei’s years of guidance.

Besides these two, Ye Jun and Endo Tatsuro were only slightly delayed before they also reached the first hurdle and began their hurdle attack.

Before joining the national team, Ye Jun’s coach had been helping him with technical adjustments and improvements. After joining the national team, his coach also followed into the national team as Lü Fei’s assistant coach, communicating together about Ye Jun’s technical characteristics and areas that needed improvement.

This included his problem of spending too much time in the air when clearing hurdles.

After months of adjustments during the World Championships training camp and this winter training period, Ye Jun’s technical weakness of slow swing leg depression during hurdle attacks had gradually improved, making his inter-hurdle rhythm improve further. This was also one of the reasons he could refresh his personal best again during the World Championships.

On the track, Ye Jun was also putting all his focus into moving forward. He didn’t waste energy checking his opponents’ positions. His eyes were only fixed on each hurdle ahead and the finish line beyond the hurdles.

What could be more important than fighting with everything you had on the track?

Unlike Su Zhe and the others, Endo Tatsuro’s mental state was slightly unbalanced at this moment.

This was his home turf. Before the finals, he had already lost first place in the semifinals, and now on the finals battlefield, under the gaze of all the countrymen who came to watch, fighting alongside him were the Chinese athletes who had lost to him at the Asian Championships… and now their speed was not only matching his but even seemed to be slightly ahead.

Endo Tatsuro wanted to suppress the imbalance in his heart. He understood that on a real track, there shouldn’t be distracting thoughts in his mind, but at this moment, he failed to control himself.

Fortunately, these distracting thoughts in his mind didn’t seem to cause him mistakes like hitting hurdles yet. He desperately tried to focus his mind and kept attacking the hurdles ahead!

The 60m hurdles track was really too short. Compared to the 110m hurdles, it lacked enough distance for athletes with strong finishing power to pull away from others by a larger margin in the middle and later sections of the race.

Even so, Zhou Tianjue, Su Zhe, Ye Jun, and even Endo Tatsuro had already opened up a visible gap from the three athletes behind them.

Su Zhe gracefully cleared each hurdle, his body leaning slightly forward in a posture that looked exactly like the snow leopard Ishida Ippei had described, elegant yet full of aggression.

His swing leg lifted with crisp, decisive movements, and after his takeoff leg pushed off the ground, he quickly used that explosive power to launch his body forward through the air.

Each of his steps was agile, light, and fast, making him look like a bolt of lightning constantly breaking through as he moved forward.

Zhou Tianjue, who was keeping pace with him, had a completely different style. This chuunibyou boy also had incredible talent for rhythm between hurdles, and combined with his advantage of being tall with long legs, every one of his movements looked full of power.

His taut thigh muscles and long arms and legs created a visual impact just from looking at them. His naturally aggressive aura, complete with that trademark sharp, borderline-arrogant glare, only amplified the intimidation factor.

Although Ye Jun’s speed seemed slightly slower than the other two, his form was just as strong. His mature and steady presence kept him competitive in the battle between the three, and each push-off and stride between hurdles gave people a solid feeling. He hadn’t truly exploded yet, and his speed was still increasing between the hurdles!

Under the siege of these three, Endo Tatsuro was almost pushing himself forward under mountain-like pressure.

He couldn’t lose to them!

These demon kings from China… he couldn’t let them look down on him!

On the 60-meter track with just 5 hurdles, it could be said to pass in the blink of an eye.

Go! Go!!

In the audience stands, everyone was shouting with all their might for this final race.

“Endo-kun!!! Gambatte!!!”

“Su!!! Jiayou!!!”

The stands erupted as fans screamed for their favorites. Everything would be decided in less than 10 seconds.

In the commentary booth, Ishida Ippei was also loudly supporting Endo Tatsuro, “Endo-kun!!! You have to keep going!!!”

After quickly attacking through the 5 hurdles, Su Zhe and Zhou Tianjue almost simultaneously entered the final sprint section, and just one body length behind them, Ye Jun and Endo Tatsuro were also in hot pursuit!

The final 10 meters, 5 meters, 2 meters, 1 meter…!

Su Zhe and Zhou Tianjue dove across the line at the same time, and Ye Jun and Endo Tatsuro also crossed the finish line one after the other right behind them.

“Finish!!!” Ishida Ippei looked toward the track with complex emotions. “An impossibly close battle! China’s two demon kings crossed first in what might as well be a tie! Meanwhile, Ye Jun and Endo-kun’s placements are too close to call!”

“In the end, Zhou and Su from China still won the final victory with a visible advantage, but between them, who is the ultimate winner? Is it the tall, young Zhou with his amazing presence? Or is it Su, the absolutely beautiful fairy who can lure people into endless depths?”

After crossing the finish line, the athletes had too much momentum, and they all crashed into the foam wall at the edge of the track before finally stopping.

After coming to a stop, Zhou Tianjue pumped his fist again. Since his unexpected exit in the World Championships semifinals, he hadn’t really had a satisfying run on the track.

In the semifinals, although he was already very excited, none of the people in his group were his opponents. But in this race, whether it was Su Zhe, Ye Jun, or Endo Tatsuro, the different pressures from each person gave him an even more thrilling experience.

Su Zhe also satisfyingly swept his hair back behind his head. He smiled as he looked at this track. Over four days, he had gone from initial discomfort to gradually finding his feeling on the track again. This feeling on the track always fascinated him so much.

He nervously clenched his hands. He wondered who the final victory would belong to.

In the commentary booth, after the judges finished organizing all the athletes’ results, Ishida Ippei had also received the final results sheet. After seeing the times clearly, Ishida Ippei shook his head with a bitter smile for a moment.

“Everyone, the final results sheet has been passed to me… The first place in this race goes to the Athlete Zhou from China! His time is 7.65 seconds! In second place, also from China, is Su! He ran an excellent time of 7.66 seconds!”

As Ishida Ippei announced the results, the big screen at the venue also displayed all the athletes’ times.

Second place…

Su Zhe’s eyes widened slightly, then he quickly took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes with his hands, and patted his cheeks.

This result was actually expected. Although his starting reaction was slightly faster than Zhou Tianjue’s, his height disadvantage and marginally weaker explosive power and acceleration ability at the start allowed Zhou Tianjue to make up for the reaction time difference in the pre-hurdle phase.

In the hurdling phase, Zhou Tianjue would reach his maximum speed earlier than him in the 110m hurdles, while his maximum speed would only appear around the seventh hurdle. His real advantage, just like in the 100m sprint, was in the latter part of the 110m hurdles.

But although he understood this result rationally, it was only a 0.01 second difference…

He still felt unwilling.

He had performed really well in this race, and even in his hurdle attacks, he had tried to improve his early speed… but he still lost by this 0.01 seconds.

Su Zhe rubbed his forehead. For the first time, not under Zhou Tianjue’s provocation but on his own initiative, he turned to Zhou Tianjue and said, “Tianjue, next time, I won’t lose to you!”

Hearing Su Zhe’s declaration, Zhou Tianjue’s eyes also lit up. He looked at Su Zhe, put his hands on his hips and said, “I’d expect nothing less! But the winner will still be me!”

Beside the two of them, Ye Jun also had a smile on his face. He had also seen his final ranking and time on the big screen, 7.70 seconds, third place.

In this indoor invitational meet initiated by Japan, the top three places in the final race went to three athletes from China.

In the commentary booth, Ishida Ippei’s voice carried a hint of sourness, “Yesterday, three demon kings from China were born on our track, and today, the three demon kings have already covered the sky… They have dominated tonight’s 60m hurdles track, and what’s even more terrifying is… in the field of hurdling, apart from Endo-kun, we currently have no one else who can challenge the rule of these three demon kings…”

“On the future Asian hurdling scene, I seem to already see a very terrifying image… That might… be an era ruled by China’s three hurdling demon kings!”

Author’s Note:
Spicy Chicken’s Interview Time
Cai Cai: OvO Baby, look above! Was mama righteous enough? Was I good to you?
Boss Shao: =_=… Well, thanks I guess
Cai Cai: =.= Sigh, why are you still so cold? When kids grow up, they’re hard to handle…