Almighty Coach

Either of the two reasons given by Hua Liu would be sufficient for Dai Li to be made the group leader.

As for these three, being recruited by the national team was impossible. They hadn’t didn’t qualified for the national training camp, while Dai Li could gain a firm foothold in the national team. This showed that he was much stronger than them, and thus could be eligible to be group leader.

Besides, Dai Li was Li Xue’s favorite disciple, who was the second in command on the national track and field team. Xue was very influential throughout the whole country due to his numerous disciples and longtime followers. Relying on his relationship with Li Xue, Dai Li could make himself the group leader.

Considering this, Baojun Sha suddenly felt a sense of loss. He had trained for quite a long time to be the group leader. Now, the chance was taken by someone else before he could even get his hopes up.

He took a deep breath and cleared his mind. He had to console himself, "Dai Li is happy on the national team, and certainly won’t want to return to the provincial team. I think he was just drafted for the National Games. After that, he’ll surely return to the national team."

"Well, let’s talk about the National Games." Hua Liu continued, "Dai Li is a coach. After coming back, the team will assign him athletes to train, right? Sha, who do you think will be sent to him?"

As if Baojun Sha was aware of something, his expression suddenly became serious.

Hua Liu continued, "When Dai Li comes back from the national team, our team will definitely assign him the best athletes. On our team, there are three top athletes: Kun Shen, trained by Sha, Tinshan Chen, trained by Li, and Yueyang Zhu, trained by me."

Guodong Li interrupted Hua Liu and added, "Sha, if I remember correctly, Kun Shen has been training with you for four years! Yueyang Zhu with Hua Liu have been for over three years. Although Tinshan Chen has only been training with me for nearly two years, his training is just starting to pay off."

Looking at these two guys, Guodong Li added, "Dai Li will choose one of them, which means taking away our two-year efforts. Will we be reimbursed? And at this key sports event, it seems that Dai Li will take an athlete trained by us to the National Games and steal our achievements."

"You two took me here just for this?" Baojun Sha sat up and continued, "To be honest, we would be quite lucky and thankful if our three athletes could even pass the National Games’ qualification. To get good rankings would be impossible."

"But we can’t allow Dai Li to take away our trainees!" Hua Liu said firmly, "Sha, at this special moment in time, we three should unite together against the outsider! We cannot allow Dai Li to rob our athletes."

"Unite together against the outsider?" With a sly smile on his face, Baojun Sha said, "Dai Li will only choose one man, and the probability of any of us is one third. I don’t think my athlete will be lucky enough to be chosen by Dai Li."

"What do you mean, Sha?" Guodong Li looked anxious.

Smiling at him, Baojun Sha added, "Didn’t you just say that Kun Shen had been training with me for four years? Actually, it’s been four years and eight months! Kun Shen is twenty four. He’s the oldest among the three athletes!"

Looking at Hua Liu, he continued, "Hua Liu, Yueyang Zhu, who you train, is about twenty two, right?"

"Yes, he will be soon," Hua Liu nodded.

"As for Tinshan Chen..." Turning to Guodong Li, he smiled, "Wasn’t Tinshan Chen chosen by you from Qingcheng Sports School two years ago, Li? Later, you managed to get him onto the youth team. One year later, he was directly selected for our provincial team. I suppose that he’s no older than twenty, right?"

When talking about age, Guodong Li became a little uncomfortable.

Baojun Sha continued, "All three are practically the same in skill, but they’re different in age. If you were Dai Li, which one would you choose? The twenty-four-year-old, the twenty-two-year-old, or the one under twenty?"

It was known to all coaches that the younger an athlete was, the more potential they had. When facing three athletes at the same level, anyone with common sense would choose the youngest.

Holding his stray and patting Hua Liu’s shoulder, Baojun Sha said, "Don’t worry, Liu. Even if Dai Li came back, he wouldn’t choose Kun Shen or Yueyang Zhu. I assure you!"

Guodong Li clenched his fists with anger, because Baojun Sha had figured out his plan.

Guodong Li had been eager to find an ally, since the youngest athlete, Tinshan Chen, who he trained, was the most likely to be chosen by Dai Li.

Therefore, he wanted to form an alliance with Baojun Sha and Hua Liu.

He talked to Hua Liu first and exaggerated the situation to scare Hua Liu, who hadn’t realized the age issue and had agreed to ally with him.

However, when talking with Baojun Sha about it, Guodong Li’s trick was figured out by the wily Baojun Sha. What’s more, Hua Liu also understood the truth, thanks to Sha’s comment.

After Baojun Sha moved to another table to the side, Guodong Li turned to Hua Liu. "Liu, it seems that Sha doesn’t want to help us, but don’t worry, we can find others..."

"Oh, Li, you eat slowly, I’m going to get a bowl of porridge!" Hua Liu cut him off and went off with his stray, leaving Guodong Li sat there alone.

"Men are evil and tricky!" Guodong Li couldn’t help but curse in his mind.

...

In the conference room of the track and field team of Hanbei Province...

Pointing at Dai Li next to him, Weidong Chu said, "Let me introduce to you Dai Li. You must have heard about him before, but some of you may have never seen him before. Li was added to the national team after entering our track and field team, so he seldom shows up on our team. Now, he’s returned. Whether you’ve seen him before or not, now you know him. Come on. Let’s welcome Li back from the national team!"

Saying that, Weidong Chu started to applaud, and the others clapped along.

"Thank you! Thank you all!" Dai Li stood up, made a brief self-introduction, then said some standard words about learning more from others.

As he sat down, Weidong Chu went on, "Let’s get straight to business. The qualifications for the National Games are about to begin. Needless to say, everyone knows how important the National Games are. What we are going to talk about is the National Games. Moving on, let’s start with the field events. Coach Wang, tell us about your group’s preparation for the long jump."

A bald man took out the report materials he had prepared, and said calmly, "For this National Games, the long jump group has specially prepared..."

...

The field sports included high jump, long jump, pole vault, triple jump, shot put, discus, javelin, and hammer. Every coach for every event reported their preparation for the National Games, then Weidong Chu discussed some modifications with them.

Some events took a short time, while some took much longer. After all eight of them had finished, an hour and a half had passed.

After looking at his watch, Weidong Chu said, "Discussions on preparations for the field events are over. Now let’s discuss the track events, starting with the sprints. Lu, what about you?"

An over fifty-year-old coach put on his reading glasses and took out a rumpled document, starting to report.

As there was no group leader for sprint events and Baojun Sha, Hua Liu, and Guodong Li were all competing for the position, it wouldn’t be appropriate to let any one of them do the reporting. It would be regarded as an act of favoritism.

Thus, Weidong Chu arranged the old yet honorable coach Lu to do the reporting. Coach Lu was approaching retirement age, and he certainly would not contend to be group leader. He wasn’t a threat to the three people, so letting him report wouldn’t cause others to misunderstand his intentions.

Coach Lu did his briefing at quite a slow pace. Though he said a lot, there was actually not much meaning in what he said. Anyway, as an old retiring coach who was basically dawdling his time away at work, he wasn’t expected to do any brilliant reporting.

After he finished his report, they needed to discuss matters as usual.

Weidong Chu turned to Dai Li first.

"Li, you’ve been with the national team for such a long time, and you’re Coach Li Xue’s favorite disciple. Besides, you competed in the Asian Games. You’re definitely an expert on sprint training. Tell us what you think first!"