Mr Mermaid | LK Adaptation

Chapter 48

Chapter 48

October 3rd was the fourth day of the swimming events of the Asian Games.

Today, there would be races to determine the gold medals for four men's events and three women's events. The men's events were the 100-metre butterfly, the 100-metre breaststroke, the 400-metre individual medley, and the 4x100-metre freestyle relay. Without exception, all four of these events were strong suits of the Japan team. It would not be easy for China to snatch a gold from the Japan team.

Coupled with Jungkook's slip up just the day before, the local media did not dare to make any ambitious forecasts.

In the 400-metre medley, China had the young 17-year-old swimmer Taehyun representing them. He had a decent time, but whether or not he could nab a medal would depend on his actual performance during the race. Aside from this event, with its current talent pool, China still had good chances of standing up on the podium in the other three events. In particular, Soobin's time for the 100-metre breaststroke was ranked second in Asia this year, number 4 in the world. If he swam well today, he should be able to obtain a silver medal. His rival was Japan's Tarou Okamoto. Even though the name was a little... erm, well... whatever, it did not have any effect on Tarou's ability. His best time this year was 59.36 seconds, almost a full 0.3 seconds ahead of Soobin's best time. Yoongi's 100-metre butterfly was also beneath a Japanese rival. Soobin's and Yoongi's performance in competitions are pretty much at two extremes. Soobin's performance could be very good or it could be very bad, even he could not say for sure how his condition would be for a particular race. Meanwhile, Yoongi had always been unfailingly stable — his performance had yet to show signs of any large breakthroughs, but he had also never slipped up and performed badly.

The 4x100 metre freestyle gold medal was generally considered the most significant of all the swimming events. It was the fastest race in the group events, and it was an important indicator of the overall strength of a country's swimming standards. Furthermore, group races were always more exciting than the individual races.

The Japanese media had already issued a grand boast prior to this that this gold medal was sure to fall into their hands. Their confidence was not completely unfounded. Although neither China nor Japan could be considered world standard in this particular event, the Japan team was more well-balanced than the China team. Moreover, the China men's team had undergone a major turnover — many of the famous swimmers had retired, leaving only Jaehyun. And Jaehyun's time in the 100-metre free was not very outstanding. So what if you add on a Jungkook? If China had Jungkook, Japan still had Yuda Matsushima, and Yuuki Tanaka's 100-metre free was no weaker than Jaehyun's either.

The Japanese media did some calculations, and judging by the combined times of the two rival countries' respective best 4 freestyle swimmers, Japan would be able to beat China by about 0.2 seconds. On top of that, this was a fight on home ground, so the Japan team was sure to be able to do their best. As for the China team, well, Jaehyun and Jungkook had already slipped up before this...

At the end of all the morning's preliminaries, all the China team members involved made it into the finals. The first event of the evening was Taehyun's 400-metre mixed medley. He did very well, earning a silver medal; the champion was Japan's Yuuki Tanaka.

This was a good start for the China team.

Next, in the men's 100-metre butterfly, Yoongi steady performance nabbed China another silver.

The third men's event of the evening was the 100-metre breaststroke. Before his turn to go up, Soobin was hanging out with his teammates. He kept nattering on to Jaehyun and Jungkook, "What to do? What to do? Big bro Jaehyun, I'm so nervous! Big bro Jungkook, I'm so nervous!"