Paris, 27th, 11:00 AM.
La Défense Arena.
The Paris Olympics swimming and water polo events are all held in this venue.
This is a new Olympic swimming venue specially built by France for this Olympics, just like the Water Cube for the Beijing Olympics.
The entire swimming stadium has 13 kilometers of stands, a 5,500-ton stadium frame, and a 28,632-square-meter competition venue. The exterior wall is made up of 600 movable aluminum blocks and glass scales.
It looks very spectacular from the outside.
The overall design is like a whale swimming in the water, built by world-renowned architect Christian de Portzamparc over 5 years.
However, at this moment, Chen Shu certainly doesn't have time to admire the place where he will be competing.
No matter how beautiful it is, it has nothing to do with him.
"In an hour, we'll first have the women's 400-meter freestyle. Bing Jie and Ya Xin, you go try out the pool first!"
An hour before the start of each race, athletes are allowed to enter the water.
Familiarizing yourself with the venue is crucial for the competitors!
Familiarize yourself with the pool, temperature, water depth, and flow, then feel the rhythm of swimming.
Every professional swimmer has a set of muscle memory movements through daily training.
But the rhythm of these movements is critical.
If you can achieve a faster rhythm than usual, you might break some records.
If the rhythm is disrupted, even if you swim your hardest, you might just be swimming in place.
Especially this swimming pool, it's not a standard 3-meter pool. A 2.3-meter pool is difficult to swim in.
The bigger the stroke, the bigger the waves, the more the rhythm is disturbed.
For example, butterfly and breaststroke.
This is actually easy to understand.
For instance, a whale makes a splash in the deep sea, and you on the surface wouldn't feel it at all.
But if it rolls over at a distance of 100 meters, you happen to be right above it, even on the surface, you would still feel it.
The shallower the pool, the bigger the waves!!
The breaststroke and butterfly have a lot of up and down movements!
So they are definitely the two most difficult strokes to swim in this pool.
Of course, that doesn't mean there is no impact on freestyle.
There is!!
But it's not as outrageous as the other two strokes.
Li Bing Jie, the top long-distance freestyle swimmer from Huaxia, and Liu Ya Xin, another athlete who practices backstroke and the 200-meter and 400-meter freestyle, walked towards the competition venue under the guidance of Coach Zhu.
Coach Zhu is Zhu Zhigen, the head coach of Zhejiang Province's swimming team, and he also came to Paris with the team.
He's the assistant coach now, unlike the last Tokyo Olympics where he was the head coach.
The Sun Yang incident of knocking over the doping test bottle still had some impact on him.
"Okay, let me tell you about the preliminary rounds now!"
"There's nothing much to say about the individual events, the main thing is the relays!"
Cui Deng Rong looked at the 8 athletes for the women's 100-meter freestyle and men's 100-meter freestyle relays.
There are a total of 5 swimming events today.
The women's and men's relays are both at the end.
There are less than 2 hours left before the competition starts.
He first talked to the women about tactics and opponents, then looked at the four of Chen Shu.
"Let me talk about your main opponents in the preliminaries first!"
"Our draw is pretty good this time, we didn't get into the same group as the two old rivals, the Americans and Australians."
"But that has its pros and cons!"
"The good thing is the psychological pressure isn't as great."
"The bad thing is, top three in the preliminaries might not be secure."
"We have to be second!!!"
Because the final takes the top 8 teams.
There have been cases in history where one group picked 7 teams, while another only took the group first.
Because the top 8 in the final are decided based on the final race times.
"And with no opponents pulling ahead, you might not go all out."
"So, don't underestimate them, go for the first place!"
"The Americans and Australians might field their substitutes to conserve energy."
"After all, they have so many good players, they can rotate!"
"But we can't use substitutes, we have to make sure we get into the finals first!"
The US and Australia have a lot of swimmers.
And their 100-meter freestyle swimmers are different from those of Huaxia.
Huaxia has one swimmer at 47 seconds, two within 48 seconds, and three at 49 seconds!
They might have 5 swimmers who can all reach within 48 seconds.
The average strength is about the same!!
So even though they don't have top swimmers who win medals in the 100-meter freestyle individual event, they can still get a relay medal.
Their strength is balanced, 4 at 48 seconds.
Before Chen Shu reached 48, Huaxia's 1 at 47, 1 at 48, and 2 at 49 were no match.
But now, it's hard to say.
1 at 47, 2 at 48, plus 1 at 49, is really neck and neck with 4 at 48.
"Don't worry about the Americans and Australians for now, let's look at the main 4 opponents in our group."
"Italy has always been strong in relays, and there's also Germany, England, Hungary, and the host nation, France!"
"England has Duncan Scott, the runner-up in the 200-meter freestyle at the Tokyo Olympics, and the gold medalist in the 200-meter relay!"
"Relays are his best event!"
"………”
Cui Deng Rong talked about the main opponents from each country.
Then, he looked at Pan Zhan Le and said, "Little Pan, who do you think is the safest to swim the first leg?"
"Me!"
Pan Zhan Le raised his hand: "First, secure an advantage, put pressure on the opponents!"
If Pan Zhan Le is the first leg, it means securing first place and creating an advantage.
Then the second and third legs hold their ground, and finally, the last leg... Pan Zhan Le looked at Chen Shu.
According to tactical arrangements, the two fastest swimmers should be at the front and back.
Chen Shu is definitely the second fastest in the team now.
The first leg is for speed, the last leg is for the final sprint.
But Chen Shu is a rookie, he might not be able to shoulder this responsibility.
"Little Pan, work hard, you take the last leg."
"If the first three legs fall behind too much, you need to catch up."
"Our goal is to make sure we get into the finals!"
After Cui Deng Rong finished speaking, his eyes turned to Chen Shu: "Chen Shu, first leg, are you under pressure?".