In the studio, the sound of the camera shutter kept ringing, and the flash lights kept flashing. A staff member was holding a lighting board and lighting a strong black man. The black man was holding a bottle of drink in his hand. Strike a variety of poses.
This black man is Justin Alexander, who is currently filming an advertisement for a niche brand of sports energy drink.
"Okay, this set is finished. Next, I want to shoot you drinking." The director in charge of shooting the commercial said.
"No problem." Alexander walked to the green cloth very cooperatively and took an unopened bottle of drink from the staff.
"Wait a minute!" Alexander stopped the staff member, shook the drink bottle, and then said, "Can you change it to water for me?"
The staff member was stunned for a moment, and then realized that as a professional sprinter, he would definitely not dare to drink randomly. Even if it was a product endorsed by him, he would not dare to try a sip.
A few minutes later, the staff brought back two bottles of drinks, but this time, they were filled with water.
"Okay, get ready to start shooting. Justin, you have to turn your head and face me sideways. Yes, that's it. Your head is raised, 45 degrees, a little higher, good, this is the angle..." The director began to direct.
Shooting commercials is actually a very tiring thing, especially for non-entertainers. As a top professional athlete, Alexander often appears in front of the camera for interviews with the media, but after all, it is to show his true colors, which is different from filming commercials. It is difficult for people who have not received special performance training to act freely in front of the advertising camera.
However, Alexander still performed very professionally. Although he did not have a good camera sense like an actor, he was like a diligent bee and carried out the director's instructions seriously.
Because this is the first advertising endorsement he has received since his comeback.
Track and field athletes are not like the stars of professional teams who can earn huge salaries from their teams. In terms of competition bonuses alone, they are not actually high. In general international track and field events, such as the IAAF Grand Prix, the prize money for the champion of each event is only about 10,000 US dollars, and the prize money for the year-end championship is less than 50,000 US dollars.
The highest prize in track and field competition is the million-dollar gold prize of the previous IAAF Golden Grand Prix. This is a real prize of one million US dollars, but the conditions for winning the award are very strict. It must be a gold medal at every stop. You can only get it if you win the championship. If you don't win the championship in one station, one million US dollars will fly away. And if multiple players meet the winning standards, then the one million bonuses need to be evenly distributed among the winning athletes.
In fact, the athletes who can win this award are all dominant athletes. For them, a million-dollar bonus is actually not that much. They can earn tens of millions every minute from advertising endorsements.
The main income of top track and field athletes is advertising endorsements. When Alexander was not banned, he once received millions of advertising endorsements. However, due to being found to be doping, Alexander's reputation also plummeted. Previously, advertising sponsors did not let him It would be considered good if he lost money, and those new advertising sponsors would avoid Alexander like the god of plague, fearing to avoid him.
After his comeback, Alexander returned to people's attention. He participated in several competitions and his results got better and better. He won several championships in succession and ran under 10 seconds many times, which also allowed him to regain his reputation. media attention.
This is what sports are like. Although there are occasionally one or two inspirational stories that attract everyone's attention, they are basically short-lived. People's attention will soon be attracted by other things. Only achievements are important. The least likely to be ignored. As an athlete, even if his usual behavior is very controversial, as long as his results are good enough, he can still gain a large number of fans.
Now Alexander has regained the favor of advertisers, and he also cherishes this opportunity. Just like the classic old saying, you only know how to cherish after losing it.
…
Jimmy Irvine has just visited Dai Li's training center. In his opinion, there is nothing unique about Dai Li's training center. It is no different from other high-end physical training centers.
Alvin was still a little disappointed. When he visited Taylor before, Taylor boasted about Dai Li's miraculousness. This also made Alvin have relatively high psychological expectations for Dai Li. After the on-site observation, he had high expectations. The feeling gradually faded away, but a kind of doubt and uneasiness slowly fermented in Alvin's heart.
Next, Dai Li took Alvin to the outdoor track and field training ground.
"I just purchased an electronic timing system here, and it was just debugged yesterday. In other words, in this training ground, the electronic timing during official competitions can be completely simulated. In this way, the athletes' results will be more accurate. understanding." Dai Li introduced.
At the starting point of the 200-meter run, there was a starting block with wires connected behind it, and a coach was fiddling with the starting gun in his hand.
There was a black man standing in front of the starting block. The face of this black man seemed familiar to Alvin. After careful identification, he discovered that this man was Sean Ford.
"That person is Sean Ford, right? I haven't seen him in five or six years. I almost didn't recognize him. I only heard that Justin Alexander trains here. I didn't expect there were other athletes." Al Wen thought secretly.
Irvine also participated in the World Championships when Sean Ford won the 200m championship, and won two gold medals in the 400m and 4x400m. So Alvin and Sean Ford knew each other, but their status was quite different. Alvin was a great athlete and a legend, while Ford was just a flash in the pan and then became unknown.
At this moment, Ford stood on the starting block, and the coach next to him also raised the starting gun.
"Just in time, let me see how effective this electronic timing system is. After debugging, I haven't seen anyone use it yet." Li Dai said.
As soon as Dai Li finished speaking, gunshots suddenly rang out, and Sean Ford quickly started to accelerate.
Alvin stood outside the track with an indifferent expression, without any expression of expectation. The 200 meters and the 400 meters are two different sprint events, and the status difference between Irvine and Ford is quite large. It is like a legendary NBA superstar going to watch a CBA game. There are only four words: boring.
But Ford was running very seriously on the track. In the blink of an eye, he entered the straight from the curve and crossed the finish line.
At the finish line, the LCD screen was casually placed on the grass outside the track, and Ford's 200-meter result also appeared on it.
"19 seconds 98, a time of less than 20 seconds, Sean Ford is so fast!" Alvin gasped subconsciously, and the surprised look on his face could not be suppressed.
In terms of difficulty, running 200 meters within 20 seconds is more difficult than running 100 meters within 10 seconds, because 200 meters requires certain cornering skills. Judging from the current Olympic final results, it is possible to win a medal if you run 200 meters within 20 seconds. In contrast, if you run the 100 meters within 10 seconds, you may not even make it to the finals.
"A result within 20 seconds is the level of a world champion!" Alvin looked at Ford, full of doubts in his heart.
"Since winning the World Championships, Ford has never achieved decent results. If he can have this kind of speed, he can definitely pass the trials for the Olympics and World Championships easily. But why has he been unable to recover for so many years? He's about to disappear! Did he just perform beyond his level? Well, it's probably like this!" Alvin thought to himself.
However, at this time, Dai Li shouted to Ford: "Sean, you can be faster. When you were running around the curve just now, there were several detailed problems..."
Dai Li stepped forward and gave Ford instructions for three or four minutes. Ford kept nodding, then slowly walked to the lawn next to him and sat down, while Dai Li trotted back to Alvin.
"Is he going to run away again?" Alvin asked.
Dai Li nodded: "There was something wrong with his running just now. Some details were not done well, which affected the speed, so I asked him to run again and try. But he has to rest for ten minutes. Jimmy, you wait a moment, I will go Give Ford a massage.
"If you can still run within 20 seconds if your speed is affected, just blow it! Don't be afraid of the wind blowing your tongue! Even if it's just a show for me, you have to be realistic!" Alvin thought with disdain.
At this time, Alvin even felt that Dai Li specifically asked Ford to act in a scene for him to let him stay for training.
Dai Li's relaxing massage was still very effective. Although Ford had just run 200 meters, under Dai Li's massage, the feeling of muscle soreness after running at full strength quickly disappeared without a trace.
Ten minutes later, Sean Ford stood on the starting block again, while Dai Li stood aside, repeating the details that Ford needed to pay attention to.
After the firing of the starting gun, Ford rushed out again. This time, Alvin did not dismiss it like last time, but counted silently in his heart.
"Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty..." The moment Alvin counted to "twenty," Ford had already crossed the finish line.
This time, the scoreboard showed a time of 19.97 seconds.
"It's 0.01 seconds faster than just now!" Alvin looked at the electronic scoreboard in surprise.
He ran 200 meters twice in ten minutes, and the second time was faster than the first time, and both times were within 20 seconds. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Alvin would never have believed it.
Professional athletes run 200 meters at full strength, which consumes a lot of physical energy. If they only rest for ten minutes, their physical fitness cannot be fully recovered, so the speed of the second run must be slower than the first time. It is also for this reason that in those large-scale competitions, only one 200-meter race will be held in a morning or an afternoon, with the purpose of allowing athletes to recover their physical fitness.
But now, Sean Ford was ten minutes apart, and his second result was faster than the first. From Alvin's point of view, there were only two possibilities.
The first possibility is that Ford did not go all out on the first run and reserved some physical strength so that he could have more energy for the second run.
But Irvine immediately rejected this possibility. If Ford's first time result was slower, then this possibility is still valid, and Ford ran under 20 seconds for the first time, and ran 200 meters. 20 seconds, how could he not run with all his strength!
That leaves only the second possibility, which is that Ford ran better the second time than the first time, so even though his physical strength was not as good as the first time, his technical skills made up for his lack of physical strength. His second time was even faster than his first time.
Alvin thought about it carefully and suddenly felt that this second option might be the only option.
As a legendary athlete, Alvin is extremely rich in both sprint knowledge and competition experience. He knows that when running 200 meters, physical fitness is sometimes not the most critical. Excellent cornering skills may cause zero points. A few seconds difference in speed, and an accidental mistake in a corner, may ruin the entire race.
The next second, Alvin suddenly remembered the way Dai Li yelled at Sean Ford just now.
"Coach Li just said that Ford could run faster. He didn't have a good idea on a few details. Then he went to give Ford guidance for a few minutes, and Ford's speed became faster. So, Ford Is it because of Coach Li's guidance that the reason why I became faster?" After Alvin realized this, his attitude toward Dai Li changed instantly.
…
In front of the computer, Dai Li was typing on the keyboard, formulating a training plan for Jimmy Irvine.
"In the 100 meters, I have Justin Alexander, in the 200 meters, I have Sean Ford, and in the 400 meters, I have Jimmy Irvine. I have all three aces in the sprint events of the next Olympics!"