Almighty Coach

When Li had first gone to the weightlifting team, he had met Aiguo Jiang, who was also training alone. It was due, however, to Jiang’s bad temper and pride; nobody was willing to work with him. Besides, Jiang was about to retire with little hope of getting a good performance. No coach wanted to waste time on him, nor did they want to waste resources.

After he had arrived, Li visited Feifei several times, and had a general idea about her training. Feifei had her own coach, training assistant, fitness coach, dietitian, and a videographer who would record Feifei’s entire training process and show it to professionals in order to improve her training effectiveness.

Feifei was a world champion, and had broken world records several times. Feixiang Lin was also a world champion and world record-holder, and had a better place in sport enthusiasts’ hearts than Feifei. Why didn’t Lin have a coach? It didn’t make any sense.

That’s incredible. Lin shouldn’t have just have me with him for his daily training. Where is everybody? Why does nobody take care of him? What is the national team doing? Are they out of their minds? What about coach Jihai Ding, he used to be Lin’s professional coach. Why doesn’t he care about Lin? That’s weird! Li was baffled.

After a short warm-up, Lin ran hurdles several times, and then stopped.

"OK, let’s take a break," Lin said as he sat down.

Li took a look at the watch. It had only been a half an hour. That was far from enough for training. Last year, when Li was training high school students, they took a break once per hour.

Lin sat there for another half an hour, then began another set of exercises lazily. Again, Lin ran hurdles for a while, then tried a continuous 10 hurdle circuit.

In men’s 110m hurdles, there were 10 hurdles on the track, with each hurdle having a 9.14m distance between them. A 10 hurdle circuit was the basic training for this event. However, in Li’s eyes, Lin’s training almost seemed as if he was acting. Lin didn’t treat it seriously at all, and didn’t give any effort whatsoever! At the speed he was practicing at, it would take him at least fifteen seconds to finish the the process.

"Aright, time to rest," Lin said, sitting back on the ground as he began to play on his phone.

No way, another break? Li looked at his watch again. This time the exercise had only lasted 40 minutes. Lin sat there for another half an hour, then stood up.

"Shall we continue, Lin?" asked Li.

"No, do you see what time is it? Pack things up, it’s lunch time," said Lin.

What? Lunch time? Is this the end of morning training? Li was confused. It was only 11AM. The canteen wasn’t even ready to serve food.

What are all these? Lin came to the training center at 9 am, trained for about an hour in the morning, and his break time lasted longer than his actual training. On top of that, he didn’t even train seriously. Those little fatties I trained before were more conscientious than him! The intensity is far from good enough, too. He might as well have been taking a walk along the track. He calls that training?

Li looked around to check the other athletes’ status. Everybody else was busy practicing. They had all been working extremely hard.

The national team does have strict training requirements, but I guess Lin doesn’t... Li shook his head, then packed up his things and left for the dining hall.

Later in the afternoon, around 2PM, the other athletes were ready to practice again. Everyone except Lin. He didn’t show up until 3PM, and after a few reps of run-ups, he sat down and began another round of online chatting.

"10pm tonight?"

"Same bar?"

"No problem. I might arrive late."

Lin sent several audio messages. Not far away from him, Li wrinkled his brows in consideration.

Professional athletes had strict schedules. Usually they were required to go to bed before 10pm, so that they could have 8 hours of sufficient sleep and recover enough energy for the next day. However, judging from Lin’s message, Li now knew that Lin’s nightlife began at 10PM, and that he would be heading a pub.

A metropolis like Donggang had an eventful nightlife. Even at 2AM there were still places to have fun. But sucha life should never be the one of an athlete.

Lin was ignoring the rules. If he was going to a pub at 10AM, he wouldn’t leave before midnight. Now it was beginning to make sense why Lin had been an hour late this morning, and had been yawning over and over—Lin had stayed up late last night!

How could Lin act like this? Can the national team tolerate him? Li felt that there was something wrong.

...

The next day, Lin was still doing the same thing. He arrived late, left early, trained lazily with low intensity, and relaxed quite often. Meanwhile, the coaches of the national team ignored everything.

Does Lin always train in this way? How has he gotten gold medals in this way? Did he really break world records? Li was in disbelief. He decided to use the detector to examine Lin.

Detect! Li used the detector on Lin.

Target: Professional Athlete;

Professional events: Men’s 110m hurdles;

Ability: 458;

Talent: S

Well, he has S-level talent, which means he does have the ability to break world records. But what the hell is his ability? An athlete with such ability is no good in this country, let alone the world. An athlete’s ability should be above 900 in order for them to be capable of breaking a world record. Lin’s current ability is only half of what it once was. Why doesn’t he work hard? And what’s wrong with the coaches? Are they out of their minds? Especially coach Jihai Ding, he used to be Lin’s coach. Why doesn’t he control Lin? Why everything is so wrong?

Li was completely confused. His mind was a mess. As Li was thinking to himself, Lin stopped training and turned to him.

"Hey Li, you don’t need to come tomorrow morning. I have an endorsement project I need to go to, my guess is that it will take the entire morning. Maybe even the afternoon, too. If I don’t show up by 4PM, then you are free to leave!"