Chapter 253

Jones ran faster and faster ahead, with fewer and fewer runners beside her.

Because an athlete who was suspected of being a dark horse in this race suddenly appeared on the scene, Lu Chao had to take a separate car to follow behind.

It just so happened to be the car Liang Jiajia and Lu Chao were sitting in. Actually it wasn't just a coincidence, since they knew those two were friends of that athlete #00697. It was good to take this car to follow them and get more information.

Jiajia excitedly took photos. The heavy tripod she brought from far away finally came in handy. She could take photos when the car stopped.

Although she was surprised, she wasn't too surprised. She excitedly introduced to the uncles and aunties in the car: "My teacher only started learning how to swim last summer, but when she competed, she was the champion of the 200m women's freestyle this year. You know what I mean."

The others all shook their heads, indicating they didn't understand...

And Lu Chao was completely confused.

He had enthusiastically come to run errands, with the simple purpose of getting some photos of the schoolgirl participating in the marathon, to provide their pitiful and lonely long-distance running club with some promotional material, and by the way, recruit more new members. Their club was really short on people, they didn't even have enough money for team building activities.

But he didn't expect the schoolgirl to be so fierce, already halfway through the half marathon, and about to reach the finish line.

This was not just finishing the full course, he remembered he had encouraged the schoolgirl earlier by mentioning the previous club president, saying the previous president finished in the top hundred or so, extremely impressive, and got prizes, a marathon-special commemorative towel, water bottles, things like that, and a big duffel bag with the marathon logo.

But now the schoolgirl, she...

Watching her overtake one black athlete after another, Lu Chao felt his heart trembling.

No way...

Earlier, at the 10 km mark, Xiao Bao'er waved to cheer on Xiao Qi, and wanted to keep watching, but her family coaxed her to go play instead.

Kids don't have the attention span to watch the whole race, hours long.

Xiao Bao'er was soon coaxed to go to the amusement park.

Her family treated it as a vacation outing, while Xiao Shengzhou and Xiao Yu acted as porters.

However, while the two men were waiting in the restaurant, when they saw the live broadcast on the restaurant TV, they were also dumbfounded.

Xiao Shengzhou: What kind of little schoolgirl has shown up in his horse racing field?

Xiao Yu: As expected of the girl he fell for, she really stands out from the rest.

Xiao Qi didn't know how many people were paying attention to her at that moment. In her heart there was only one belief - running, running fast, running even faster.

At this point in the race, it wasn't Xiao Qi against other people, it was her against herself, she had to run faster, even faster, faster than her yesterday's self, faster than her self a moment ago.

A flash of bright yellow passed by her side.

She didn't look more, but kept running forward, without any hesitation.

The athlete girl Li Miaomiao, who the commentators were high on, was also completely astonished.

She ran very fast and had great potential. Her coach always praised her. Moreover, this year the Meng City event introduced a "National Speed" rule - as long as she could break the national record, she could get a 1 million RMB bonus.

Li Miaomiao didn't have confidence in beating those track and field athletes from Africa who always won, but she did have a thread of confidence in breaking the national athletes' record.

That's why she came to participate in this marathon, actually carrying a mission. Last year the results of the Meng City Marathon women's group were really too bad. As for the men's group, cough cough, people were used to the embarrassment of the men's group, so let's just talk about the issues with the women's group and see if the women's group could at least strive for top 3.

And by top 3, they really just meant third place. They didn't even dare hope for first or second place, saying top 3 really just meant third place.

Li Miaomiao was a professional athlete, she knew the gap very well. It couldn't be helped, the Kenyan athlete Jones participating this year was just too strong, seemingly born to run, not very tall for a foreigner at 165cm, but with extremely strong explosiveness in running, like a spinning top, shooting forward.

The strong female long distance runners were actually usually not too tall, probably because being too tall made the center of gravity unsteady, easy to sway around.

But they couldn't be too short either. If they were too short, with little short legs, they couldn't run faster than others.

As a key trainee athlete, although Li Miaomiao didn't dare think of surpassing Jones herself, she was confident of making the top 3, and secretly hoped to break the record - after all that was 1 million RMB.

Just when Li Miaomiao was desperately sprinting, feeling the dawn of victory approaching, she surprisingly found herself overtaken.

Not by a dark shadow, but a red figure.

It was a little girl who had been in their leading pack from the start.

Li Miaomiao was confused. She didn't recognize that girl, she wasn't wearing a bib like they were, but she seemed to chat happily with those foreign athletes, could she be a foreign athlete too, Korean? Japanese? Or what?

But before she could think more, she saw that red figure running faster and faster, disappearing before her eyes.

It was already 40 km, was she sprinting at this point?

She even wondered if the race she had joined was a marathon or a sprint.

Who would sprint so fast at the end of a marathon?

Barbara, the female athlete from Ethiopia running ahead of Li Miaomiao, underwent the same surreal feeling.

As foreign athletes they couldn't get the 100,000 RMB bonus, but the tens of thousands USD bonus was still a lot.

Her goal was to compete for first place, but Jones was always ahead. It couldn't be helped, but securing second place was certain. But this red T-shirt girl closely following her, who on earth was she?

They didn't recognize her face very well, but could recognize the uniform. The Huaguo athletes wore unified yellow sportswear.

While they as international athletes wore very short shorts and sleeveless tops, exposing their strong thighs and arm muscles.

Where did this athlete pop out from? And she was sprinting? She was actually sprinting? She was still sprinting?

Xiao Qi knew there was only the last stretch of road left in the race, so she used the sprint burst buff. The advantage of using the sprint burst buff was running very fast. The downside was it really exhausted the body.

Of course this buff wasn't achieved overnight, Xiao Qi trained every day running to consolidate it.

The people in the following vehicle also went crazy. Could they really have followed an unbelievable athlete?

Jiajia was shooting very excitedly, almost wanting to rush out.

In the final moment, the TV broadcast commentators also went crazy, babbling in agitated voices.

The first to reach the finish line was no suspense, the men's group athlete Sesque from Ethiopia. Not only was he last year's men's champion, he was this year's champion as well. He ran 2 hours 6 minutes 59 seconds, breaking his own previous Meng City Marathon record of 2 hours 7 minutes 11 seconds.

The second place finisher was also a man from Ethiopia, Raleigh.

Third place went to the man Otoya from Kenya.

The top three were all men, all foreign athletes, all black athletes. The commentator excitedly said, but the audience had no ripples of excitement.

Until fourth place? Or fifth place?

A flash of red figure rushed up.

And a black figure ran neck and neck with her.

The commentator's throat tightened a bit.

At this crucial final moment, Kenya's Jones, although looking very masculine with bulging pectoral and leg muscles, and even shorter hair than some men, still had a sports bra inside her sleeveless top, she was a woman. She was last year's Meng City Marathon women's champion.

But closely following her, not too close nor too far, was a girl, definitely a girl, wearing red sportswear, athlete #00697, the freshman at Enhua University. She actually appeared here.

She came.

She ran extremely fast.

Could she create a miracle?

Everyone raised their heads watching the live broadcast, some even more nervous than the commentator.

All yelling: Faster, faster, faster, even faster!

In the final moment, the two figures overlapped, almost crossing the finish line simultaneously.

There was a historical moment of silence, before the commentator's somewhat trembling voice announced the results.

Kenya's Jones finished in 2 hours 18 minutes 55 seconds.

While the Enhua University freshman Su Xiaoqi finished in 2 hours 18 minutes 56 seconds, a hair's difference, in second place. However, this was already considered one of the best results in the history of the Alliance City Marathon. Finally, there was a Chinese woman among the top three, not third place, but second place.

The announcer excitedly said that the national record for the women's marathon in China last year was 2 hours 19 minutes and 17 seconds, held by a student from Enhua University. Not only did she get second place in the women's group in this year's Alliance City Marathon, she also broke the national record, improving the domestic record by a full 21 seconds. This meant that she could directly take home a prize of 1.21 million.

Perhaps it was because there was a figure in red ahead of her, but Li Miaomiao also went all out and rushed forward to get fourth place. She surprisingly also broke the domestic record with an excellent time of 2 hours 19 minutes and 15 seconds. According to the "same day award for Chinese athletes" principle, although she was behind Su Xiaoqi in breaking the record, she still broke last year's record, and could still take home a prize of 1.02 million.