Chapter 247 The Olympics 3
This cheered not only the commentators but also all Americans watching the race, the United States had taken first place in the medal table for the first time after many years, many athletes stood out in this Olympics.
This was the last compet.i.tion and everyone wanted an American to win to close this gold-key Olympics, and Jake was the hope of all Americans if he were just an ordinary athlete they would not be very hopeful, but he was a winner two marathons, so they believed him.
After another 5 km of marathon Jake opened a big advantage of second-place that was still close to third and fourth place, Josia thought he could really win this marathon and become a hero of his country.
After that, he would be respected as an athlete and was in great shape to run today, but he realized that unless Jake got hurt or tired he could no longer dream of first place.
Lee Bong-Ju of Korea also thought the same of Josia, he thought it would be difficult to pa.s.s compet.i.tors who were on the same level as him and were all running close, but he wanted to win another medal for Asia.
But he also realized that he couldn"t get past Jake in this marathon even if he gave everything he had after Jake went through km 40 he had a huge lead for second place.
"It looks like it"s already decided, after entering the stadium with this huge advantage for second place Jake comes to win this gold medal for our country."
"Jake really seems to be another of our athletics pillars for the next few years, he was winning this 17-year-old Olympics, it will be his third marathon victory."
"That"s true, at this age he could still compete in 6 more Olympics until he can"t run anymore, so he"s another big hope of medal for our so strong athletics."
"In recent years African athletes have begun to stand out more and more in sports, especially in long-distance races, it"s good to see an American athlete being able to compete with them."
NBC commentators had forgotten that they didn"t believe in Jake before the marathon, now they as well as everyone knew the young man would win this marathon.
In the final meters of the race, Jake was no longer even worried about compet.i.tors, from the system dashboard he could see the time he was doing in this marathon, so according to his memories of his past life, Jake knew he had a big advantage for him. the second.
After the middle of the race, Jake calmed down completely and just focused on his running pace and breathing so he finished this first marathon easily and managed to win the gold medal he wanted so badly.
Jake finished the marathon in 2 hours and 9 minutes, it was a worse time than he did earlier this year, but he ran this marathon to win safely, after a few moments he was very happy to have won as he wanted and had trained so much for that.
Jake looked at the people at the stadium who were applauding him a lot and he was very happy and waved to the audience calmly, after a few minutes the second and third place came together to win the silver and bronze medal.
"Really amazing feat of Jake winning this marathon and getting this gold medal in the end, he seems to have done it easily and celebrated quietly with the crowd at the stadium, it looks like he really was prepared and confident for the win."
"True, I sincerely hoped that this final would be decided in seconds and it was very exciting as was the run for second place, but Jake was clearly much better than all the compet.i.tors and deserved to win this gold medal."
Jake managed to hold on, but in fact, he was very thrilled, it was a unique feeling to win these Olympics, he felt a lot of pride and satisfaction after winning, now he understood why many athletes cried after compet.i.tions ended.
Jake greeted the athletes who came in second and third and then waited on the track not knowing what to do, Jake did not know that he had won the approval of commentators and fans for greeting the other compet.i.tors.
Also, everyone could see that Jake didn"t even look tired and was breathing normally after winning and the other athletes were exhausted and trying to recover this clearly showed Jake"s advantage over other compet.i.tors.
After a while, the medals were handed over and Jake received the gold medal with an audience of thousands in the stadium and millions of people in the world, all were waiting to see the closing ceremony.
When they saw Jake received the medal everyone at the stadium cheered him again, the friends he had made at these Olympics also applauded Jake a lot and were surprised to see him win, even though Jake looked confident before he was not arrogant at any time.
Then there was the closing ceremony and so the end of these Atlanta Olympics in 1996, Jake was happy with the gold medal but was not satisfied with it, he knew it was just the beginning and that in the next Olympics he hoped to win. 3 more gold medals besides this one at least.
Jake said goodbye to his friends at this Olympics and went to meet Eva who had waited for him after the closing ceremony, Jake was thinking of leaving with her as soon as the Olympics were over.
The NBC film crew looked for Jake after the marathon and after the closing ceremony, but Jake wasn"t interested in talking to them now, they might have interviewed him before but disregarded him.
Now Jake thought it was fair that he wouldn"t do any interviews either, next time maybe, mainly because he wanted to leave home soon to be with his mother before going to college that would be very soon.
But even though he didn"t appear in any interview after getting a gold medal, Jake was now much more famous than before, now he was on par with some lesser-known actors in the movies.
This big showing that was the Atlanta Olympics for Jake helped, even more, to identify with Jake"s commercials earlier this year and even remember Jake"s commercial for Tiffany and Clara"s companies.
So besides Jake, the ones who got the most out of it were their sponsors who now had companies known internationally, when the internet became more popular in a few years these companies would gain even more prominence with what Jake did.
Director Crowe was also attending these Olympics, he was very happy and surprised to see Jake get this gold medal, even though he called Jake for his movie because he would compete in the Olympics.
The director didn"t expect Jake to win so he felt very lucky after that happened, on filming he realized that Jake was a great actor that could be used in his other films, and with Jake getting this gold medal would be a great advertis.e.m.e.nt for the movie to have a gold medalist.
Jake came home with his mother and no one realized that, even though he was well known after winning this Olympics his house was totally safe, Jake decided to buy this mansion in this place with good security just thinking that something like this could happen.
When Jake needed to pa.s.s the address to someone he would pa.s.s the address of his old house, so only his friends knew where he lived and could not visit Jake without going through security.
Few also knew that Eva was Jake"s mother, so it was only good to raise the reputation of her restaurant, Jake had already provided the security guards who had always accompanied Eva since moving to the new home.
Jake had only a few days to enjoy at home before going to college, just as he had said goodbye to almost all his friends so he no longer needed to spend a lot of time saying goodbye.
The other day Jake pa.s.sed the restaurant at a time when they were preparing for dinner time and so there was no one there when Jake arrived the first person he met as always was Lola.
Lola was feeling very sad because she thought she would no longer have a chance to be with Jake if she couldn"t make it by now, after all now Jake was going to college and so it would be very difficult for them to see each other.
If it was hard for her to conquer Jake before, now it was even harder Lola cried for a few days when she was home and took care that her father didn"t notice anything, only Eva and Anna knew what was going through her heart.
They both tried to help Lola get closer to Jake, but they realized that Jake didn"t seem to really like Lola, if Jake was like other men he would surely pretend to like Lola to date her, after all, Lola was very pretty.
Lola could be happy about this for a while longer would suffer much more in the future and Anna and Eva would be disappointed with Jake if he did so they didn"t interfere with Jake"s decision when they realized that he was just being honest with Lola.
Jake didn"t tell anyone he wasn"t thinking about dating anyone right now because he still felt his heart closed after what happened to Jenny, nor did he tell anyone he thought about dating Lola if she still liked him after a few years.
After all, if he did that was like leaving Lola stuck with him for those years waiting for something that might not happen, it was something Jake decided only for himself.
"Hi, Lola, how are you?"
"I"m fine Jake, congratulations on getting this gold medal at the Olympics, I was very happy for you."
"Thank you, I was very happy about it, I trained a lot for several months to get this gold medal, I"m glad I did it."
"When do you plan to go to university, Jake?"
"I"m going for a little over a week, but I"ll be back whenever I can, by the end of the year I"ll be here for sure."
"I hope everything works out for you there, both with cla.s.ses and basketball."