135 Reaching For More

The next day, Tang Yan had the 100m freestyle and 4X200m freestyle relay.

However due to yesterday with Sun Yang severely cramping up. Shen Qing didn't place Tang Yan, Sun Yang and Zhang Lin up for the 4X200m preliminaries.

Instead out of the original relay team only Lu Zhibin remained in the new team.

In the 100m preliminaries, Tang Yan didn't encounter any strong opponents. He didn't have to make too much of an effort. He advanced to the finals with a time of 50 seconds 35.

However in the 4X200m preliminaries, Lu Zhibin and the substitute squad failed to get pass the preliminaries only achieving fourth place missing out on the relay final in the evening, it was a big upset.

However, Shen Qing showed no reaction seeing this. After he made the decision to substitute the three out, he had basically given up the event. After all, without their three main swimmers and with how much the other provinces had improved and how many new talents they had acquired, he was being forced to accept the new pecking order that was being formed.

However there was some good news, of which came from Ye Shiwen.

As a female swimmer who dominated the medley, Ye Shiwen had greatly shined so far this competition and although she lost out on gold for the 200m medley, in the 400m medley final she showed reinvigoration.

With absolute dominance she won the gold medal with a time of 4 minutes 30 seconds 21, an outstanding result.

This time not only far exceeded the requirements of the World Championships A grade criteria, but also broke the national record she created last year.

It was a strong rebound.

Seeing that Ye Shiwen didn't fall into a slump, Tang Yan felt relief and happiness for her.

.....

The 100m freestyle, like the 100m sprint in track and field was where global stars were built.

Whether it was Park Tae-hwan in the Asian scene or the world famous Michael Phelps on the global stage. Their names were largely built on their absolute dominance at 100 meters.

Winning this event alone would cause a swimmers worth to skyrocket, it was a gold-plated ticket to fame.

The 100-meters freestyle competition always attracted the most attention out of all the events.

The reason for such a high degree of attention was because of the high calibre swimmers it attracted.

For example: Beijing's Chen Zuo.

When asked about Tang Yan, he expressed his appreciation but explained his dream to go on to win glory for the country at the World Championships.

This was the hope of a veteran.

Compared with Chen Zuo, Hubei's Ning Xuantao showed his self-confidence as a young athlete. He admitted his loss in the relay race and expressed his determination to defeat Tang Yan in the finals tonight.

It was worth mentioning that Ning Xuantao swam the preliminaries with a time of 48 seconds 71. This time was the best among all the contestants.

In addition to those two there was Lu Zhibin, Liu Boyu a well-performing swimmer from the Hubei relay team and Sun Yunchao the Shanghai ace.

All of them expressed their desire for gold before the race.

The event hadn't even started yet and the audience were already staring at the swimmers passage.

The host introduced the swimmers as they came out one by one from the passage, and each one came out to cheers from the crowd.

They were among the strongest swimmers in the domestic scene.

Tang Yan was the last to appear. When he appeared, the cheers on scene went up a decibel.

After his classic performance earlier, the audience's expectations of him were high.

....

The lanes were arranged according to the preliminary results. Ning Xuantao ranked first in the preliminaries. So he was in the 1st lane.

In the second lane was Lu Zhibin, with Tang Yan in the 3rd lane.

After the swimmers had completed their final preparations, they all boarded the start platform.

The assistant referee also followed behind them.

The eyes of everyone on scene locked onto the starting blocks.

"On your marks"

"Get set "

The swimmers all stooped and prepared themselves.

Buzz!

With the buzzer, the swimmers all dove into the water seemingly at the same time.

Entering the water, Tang Yan emerged first from the water and seized the leading position.

The audience followed with a cheer, sure enough, the race was developing in the direction that they expected.

However shortly after the start of the race, they found that whilst Ning Xuantao was keeping up and maintaining proximity as to not allow Tang Yan to pull away too much. He was at a disadvantage.

The strength of Tang Yan made the famous names of the other provinces hold no reservations and the pace of the first 50 meters was obviously faster than usual.

Lu Zhibin in the 2nd lane was also chasing after Tang Yan.

When they went to turn, the three of them slowly opened up a gap from the rest of the pack.

With the 50 meter turn, Tang Yan came out of the water and looked sideways to see Lu Zhibin had been left behind him by half a metre.

However, at this time, he found that the gap between Ning Xuantao and himself had narrowed.

He was slightly taken aback.

In his memories, Ning Xuantao had truly become famous after 2013 but it was currently 2011, it seemed that his strength was beginning to break out.

Ning Xuantao's potential was a good thing for Chinese swimming but Tang Yan wasn't willing to let the gold medal go.

Tang Yan didn't hold anything back and began to accelerate all the way.

Ning Xuantao insisted on keeping up, gritting his teeth and trying his best to pursue him.

After another 10 meters, they had already broken away from Lu Zhibin.

The cheers of the audience came in wave after wave.

The two might have been unaware but they were on route at their current speed to beat the national record and even contend for the Asian record!