131 Different Route

Unlike the other events, the start was very placid.

Sun Yang and Zhang Lin entered the pool their speed fairly slow.

For long distance events this was the norm, to start slow and finish fast. They would pace themselves and then pick up speed towards the last few laps.

However, there was an alternative method a far riskier one.

Needless to say, this was the route Tang Yan took.

Tang Yan was launched in, he rushed forward at twice the speed of everyone else and a distance was opened in an instant.

This move made the audience shocked and attracted a gasp of surprise from the commentators.

Commentator 1- "What is Tang Yan doing? He's rushing ahead unabashedly"

Commentator 2- "He's gaining a large lead but this an extremely risky strategy."

Commentator 3- "It's not a wise move. In the long distance events, speed and physical strength need to be properly allocated. This is complete chaos! Amateur, too amateur!"

Commentator 2- "He's betting on gaining a large lead now to hold him over but when he tires out later, he'll be relying on others failing to catch up. Hoping your opponent is weak isn't a reliable strategy."

In fact, it wasn't only the commentators but even Shen Qing was stunned because he categorised Tang Yan was more of a short-distance swimmer, he didn't pay much attention to him for this event.

But he didn't think that Tang Yan would recklessly storm ahead from the beginning.

This was simply chaos.

Whilst Tang Yan was a genius, he was one without much experience.

His overwhelming talent covered much of his inadequacies making it hard to believe he was a newcomer.

In the first 50 meters, Tang Yan led the others by more than 10 meters going into the turn, after his rapid tumble turn, this advantage increased again.

Seeing him continuously pulling away, the swimmers in the lanes beside him couldn't help but unconsciously began to speed up.

The swimmer in the 7th lane began to accelerate after turning and so did the swimmer in the 6th lane, he picked up the pace seeing the two beginning to pull away slightly.

This pace change caused the head coaches of the 6th and 7th lanes to scream, if they could, they would have ran to the pool to shout at their athletes to stop.

Zhang Lin and Sun Yang of the 4th and 5th lanes still maintained the previous pace.

At the end of the first 100 meters, Tang Yan's lead was more than 20 meters.

The crowd watched in excitement, they didn't pay much attention to tactical strategies. When they saw Tang Yan continuously pulling away from the other swimmers, waves of overwhelming cheers arose in the stands.

In stark contrast to the audience, the coaches of each team were staring down at Tang Yan waiting for him to tire out.

At the end of the second 100m, Tang Yan had opened up his lead to nearly a lap!

And his speed still hadn't slowed!

Many viewers excitedly took out their phones and started recording.

300m in Tang Yan's speed hadn't changed! The gap between him and the other swimmers had been widened to more than a lap!

The emotions of the audience were completely ignited.

Tang Yan's performance completely overturned their understanding of long-distance swimming projects.

The coaches of the other provinces were incredulous.

How could he keep up such speed for 300 meters? If he were to participate in 400 meters wouldn't he completely dominate!

But completing 300 meters, Tang Yan finally began to reduce his speed.

After unlocking Zhang Shun's powers, Tang Yan's short-distance events could be said to be great but his long distance was still relatively weak. After all, so far he had only unlocked 50% of his abilities.

When he usually swam it for training his time was about 8 minutes or thereabouts.

Seeing Tang Yan finally beginning to slow, the head coaches of the other provinces finally breathed a sigh of relief.

If he did this the whole 800 meters, let alone winning the championship the world record would be a breeze.

At 400 meters, Sun Yang and Zhang Lin began to accelerate.

The swimmers who had followed Tang Yan in the 6th and 7th lanes began to show weakness and they were overtaken by Sun Yang and Zhang Lin.

At 500 meters, they had narrowed the distance between Tang Yan to a lap.

At 600 meters, Sun Yang and Zhang Lin began to really accelerate.

Although they knew that Tang Yan's speed had dropped, a lead of a lap was huge.

By 700 meters, they had closed in a large amount of the distance.

The emotions of the audience were once again ignited.

In the last 100 meters, Sun Yang went super saiyan and began to pull away from Zhang Lin.

He closed the gap to only 20 meters and he was still gaining.

The audience stood from their seats, Sun Yang's performance was too exhilarating!

After the last 50 meter turned, Sun Yang had completely pulled away from Zhang Lin and the gap between him and Tang Yan was only 10 meters!

The last 25 meters, the gap between him and Tang Yan was only 5 meters!

Sun Yang fully displayed all his strength, it was clear to see why he had become the face of Chinese swimming in Tang Yan's past life.

The speed at which he was gaining was astounding!

However, Tang Yan who was looking on the backfoot suddenly began to accelerate!

Aiming for one last push.

"This...." The onsite commentators who were excitedly screaming about Sun Yang's performance a second before were shocked the next second by Tang Yan.

But Sung Yang still had the slight edge.

20 metres left, the gap was 4 metres

15 metres left, the gap was 3 metres

10 metres left, the gap was 2 metres

5 metres left, the gap was 1 metre.

They both kicked hard and dove for the wall.

The crowd launched into cheers and applause.

7 minutes 52 seconds 63!

After seeing this result, the audience was completely ecstatic!

Within 8 minutes!

The A grade criteria for the 800-meter freestyle at the World Championships was 8 minutes and 10 seconds 26.

Sun Yang, had qualified and clutched the win at the very last moment.

Stealing it out from Tang Yan's finger tips.

Tang Yan's time was 7 minutes 54 seconds 04.

The Zhejiang Province had successfully won the two seats to the World Championships.

Geniuses absolute geniuses, the pair of them!

Shen Qing's body trembled in excitement.

Sun Yang's time had taken some deviations from what he expected but it was within range and enough for now.

Tang Yan's performance on the other hand could be said to be completely out of his expectations. Although his method was up for questioning, his strength was evident.

This race completely overthrew his previous view on Tang Yan.