With a gunshot in the track and field hall of Shaanxi Zhangba Training Center, it marked the beginning of the 2023 national athletics events.
On February 11-12, the National Indoor Athletics Invitational (1st Stop) will be contested. As the first track and field event in the era of full liberalization, its orderly holding is also of great significance.
There are many teams participating in this indoor competition, mainly athletes who specialize in sprinting and middle running. They need to participate in the invitational tournament first to qualify for subsequent indoor tournaments.
On the other hand, each team has just finished winter training or is still in the winter training cycle, and testing the phased results in the form of a competition is also to let athletes "find feelings" in actual combat.
Among the participating lineup, Guangdong super rising star Chen Guanfeng, National Games champion Liang Qi, national record holder Liu Dezhu, 14th Games silver medalist Xi Qiheng and other famous players. In terms of project settings, the conference set up a rare indoor 200 meters at home and abroad, and it was gratifying to see the 3000 meters event return to indoor competition.
As the opening battle of "finding a feeling", the performance of some strong players and new faces in the middle and long distance running events was remarkable.
In the men's 800m final that ended on the morning of the 12th, Zhejiang's Xi Qiheng and Guangxi's Liu Dezhu formed a competitive pattern, and finally Xi Qiheng launched a leap before the penultimate lap and maintained the advantage to the finish line, winning in 1:55.18.
Liu Dezhu finished second and represented Shaanxi's home player Alimujiang Rehmet in third place. In the preliminary round of this event, Liu Dezhu ran 1:50.29 to easily advance to the first place overall, and Xi Qiheng ranked sixth overall.
In the 1500m final that ended on the afternoon of the 12th, Shanghai's Xie Dongsheng made a final lap and finally won the championship in 3 minutes 48.53 seconds without suspense.
In the gun final, Xi Qiao, who had just won the 800m championship in the morning, withdrew after halfway, and then the situation on the field was controlled by Xie Dongsheng and Liu Dezhu, who finished second in 3:49.39. Liaoning's Liang Qi finished third in the final sprint with a time of 3:49.67.
It is worth mentioning that although the top three players in this competition, Xie Dongsheng, Liu Dezhu and Liang Qi, are from different representative teams, they are all players trained by coach Shi Peng of the national team.
In the men's 3000m final held on the morning of the 12th, Ningxia's Wan Jiaxin, who represented the individual, won the championship in 8 minutes 33.57 seconds, teammate Wen Du Rihu won the second place, and Yunnan's Fu Youqian, who represented the individual, won the third place.
The competition was fierce, with Fu Youqian taking the lead on the final lap but being overtaken by Wan Jiaxin in the straight sprint, and Wen Du Rihu later came out on top to win a runner-up.
In the preliminary round, Fu Youqian and Wen Du Rihu both showed good competitive form, both of which were significantly ahead of their opponents to advance to the first place in the group, of which the former was ranked first in the preliminary round.
In the women's 800m final, which ended on the morning of the 12th, Guangdong's Zhang Guiping easily won the championship in 2 minutes 11.61 seconds. She was hardly challenged throughout the tournament to win the championship by a wide margin.
Zhejiang's Zheng Xiaoqian finished second in 2:12.75, while Zhejiang's Xu Hui took third.
Zhang Guiping was the first in the preliminary round and continued this good form into the final. In the 2022 season, she got the opportunity to train with the national team Shi Peng, and played well in both games in Portland.
Judging from the opening competition, it also fully reflects the results of external training.
In the women's 1500m final that ended on the afternoon of the 12th, Jilin's Li Chunhui won the championship with a time of 4:34.12 with a sprint in the last 100m.
Hebei's Li Yaxuan took second place in 4:34.23, 0.11 seconds away from the title. She narrowly beat third Liaoning's Song Yunuo by 0.01 seconds, who took 4 minutes 34.24 seconds.
In this race, Yang Yiting, who finished first in the heats, led the way for most of the race, until she was overtaken by four opponents in the last 100 meters, and finally finished fifth.
Li Chunhui from the Jilin team is now also studying under coach Shi Peng, and will also participate in training and competitions in the United States with the national middle running training team in the future, and her performance in more competitions in the future is worthy of more expectations
In the women's 3000m race on the morning of the 12th, the championship competition began between Yang Yiting and Li Yaxuan, and the former won in 9:58.34.
Ke Xiaojuan finished third in 10:04.80, but there was a big gap compared to the first two competitors.
In the preliminary round the day before, Li Yaxuan and Yang Yiting were the top two runners in the whole race, and they also needed to race 1500 meters at the same time. In the relatively intensive schedule, it also tests the continuous combat ability of athletes.
With the end of the relay event, all events of the entire indoor track and field invitational (1st stop) came to an end.
Athletes from all over the country really completed the first shot after the full release, while testing the results of this past winter training. The results shown in the competition will provide reference and guidance for subsequent training directions and methods.
The indoor season includes more mid-run specialists, who have a younger age structure, faster replacement cycle, greater suspense and higher requirements for technique, tactics and experience than long-distance runners and marathons. More competitions can be implemented in an orderly manner, allowing athletes to hone and accumulate more competition experience. This has been a rare opportunity over the past three years.
After the first stop in Shaanxi starts, subsequent indoor competitions will also be held in Shandong and Sichuan. "Run 98" will continue to cover the entire three indoor invitational races.
The domestic season ushered in the beginning, and at the same time, there were also good news from foreign competitions. Among the 25 athletes competing in Kazakhstan at the Asian Athletics Indoor Championships, He Wuxia won the silver medal in the women's 3000m in 9:03.43.
Although it is already spring, there is light rain outside the Zhangba Training Center in Shaanxi, and the temperature is still "winter". Inside the venue, we saw youth and blood in this 200-meter lap runway; Under the five-star red flag and the five Olympic rings, running the future of Chinese athletics.