Chapter 113 - The First Championship (1/2)

There were several players who had signed up for short distance running events, such as the 100-meter, 200-meter, and 400-meter run. For example, before the official game even began in the afternoon, the running event had still been engaged in the preliminaries for the 100 and 200 meters, with about a dozen groups each.

It’s not that everyone of them had incredible sprinting abilities, but because they had gone for the easy route.

For example Zhang Zhou Wei, who had signed up for the 100-meter run. He entered the competition grounds with his injury, taking about twenty seconds to drag his twisted ankle to the track. What event was easier than this? Shot put required three rounds, which would take at least half an hour.

During the preliminaries for the 100 and 200-meter dashes, simultaneously began the first field event, high jump. The placement of the set up on the track had been in a spot where the contestants from the 100 and 200-meter dashes would not reach.

The academy had a standard track. In addition to the short duration of the sports meet, everything operated at this level, with two events happening on different sides of the track at the same time.

The men’s high jump also didn’t have much contestants, hovering at around 20 or so. They didn’t separate into groups and entered immediately into finals.

Once the men’s high jump ended, the women’s commenced. Jiao Yan Ran had signed up for this category, so all the classmates from their department had been watching her stage and cheering her on from the stands.

Jiao Yan Ran was the last competitor for the women’s division. The order was unconventional, as it wasn’t based on a lottery draw, but it followed the athlete’s number plate, which had been specially arranged.

Why?

Because she was the only female contestant using the sponge mat. Asides from two guys from the men’s division who had also use it, she was the third one in the entire field.

The referee had known of Jiao Yan Ran ahead of time, and arranged her to come last so they could conveniently set up the sponge mat.

There were several ways to jump over the pole, the most common method being the leap style, and the back-jump style. Everyone knew the leaping method, but the back jump method was much less common; the kind of actions nobody you know would know, but everyone on TV seems to.

The technical requirements for the ‘Fosbury flop’ or the backward flip were very demanding. Everything else aside, 90% of regular people wouldn’t even have the courage to jump with their back facing the pole.

Besides, under regular circumstances, an ordinary person would never perform pole-style high jump exercises, unless you skipped rope as a kid. And not even the kind that double dutches twenty or so times, but the actual high-intensity kind.

There weren’t that many girls participating in high jump, around a dozen or so. The first round’s height was set at 1 meter, which immediately disqualified 10 of them. The five girls who could pass the 1-meter height were the only ones who passed onto the top six, including Jiao Yan Ran who had asked the referee to raise the bar to 1.3 meters in the first round.

At the beginning of the second round, the first contestant was the last member from the last round, Jiao Yan Ran. For the same reason, as it was too troublesome to remove the sponge mat.

Raising the height to 1.40 meters, which was the standard of a third-tier national athlete, Jiao Yan Ran succeeded with flying colors.

Removing the high jump mat, the pole height got lowered to 1.10 meters. The other contestants continued to advance, with only three girls remaining who had passed the 1.10 height.

By the third round, only one contestant was left after clearing the 1.20-meter height.

Once the pole was raised to 1.3, this contestant gave up.

The referee looked at Jiao Yan Ran, who also forfeited, taking the championship.

Under completely irregular conditions, the women’s high jump finals were done.

The animation department’s students on the bleachers stood up to cheer, but there was no surprise in their voice. Last year was about the same process.

The Academy of Fine Arts, which had a total of zero-high jump specialty females, Jiao Yan Ran being a former national volleyball player was already godsend.

What’s more, Xiao Yan Ran also had experienced being on the provincial high jump team, so she had proper credentials to crush the scene.

Although the competition was doomed from the beginning, Jiao Yan Ran still received copious amounts of applause from the animation department for winning a championship for their team.

Not surprisingly, the animation department will receive three gold medals this year, because Jiao Yan Ran still had two other categories to compete in; the women’s long jump and the women’s triple jump. Her chances of winning were very stable.

However, life was ever-changing, and accidents appeared very quickly.

At three in the afternoon, the men’s shot put finals began. As the third to appear, Meng Fan’s first throw landed a score of 12.25 meters. This was the level of a second-tier national athlete. He basically had the championship on lockdown.

This was a real f*cking surprise for the students in the animation department!

“Iron hero!”