Chapter 347 Back for the Soph.o.m.ore Year 1
Of course, the commentators couldn"t know that Jake could run faster than his own world record when he wanted to, so it was natural for them to think that way, Jake kept running smoothly.
After running the 40km marathon Jake still had a big lead in second place, at this point, it was clear that Jake would win this marathon, Jake was running at a slower pace just to make sure he wasn"t even tired after running these 40 km.
After earning two resistance points this year by winning both major marathons and gaining strength points, he had no problem winning a marathon even running at the pace he was training.
Even more, after he went through Coach Davis"s resistance training that was preparing Jake for long-distance running, even though he tired more running alone he had spent less stamina for running using some techniques he learned from Coach Davis.
When Jake crossed the 42 km and entered the Olympic Stadium it was certain that he would win easily, American fans and sports fans applauded Jake who was winning one more marathon and one more gold medal at the World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics.
"And Jake wins this marathon at the 1997 World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics, it"s certainly well deserved for what Jake has been doing in the last few years in marathons."
"It"s true, Jake wins another gold medal for the American team that underperformed the World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics one year."
"Let"s wait and see if Jake will run another marathon later this year or now focus on college basketball again, I"m sure he"s bringing a lot of pride to UNC by winning that gold medal."
Jake received one more gold medal later and was proud to receive just as he did after the Olympics, Jake hoped that in the next few years he could win many more medals like this and maybe other medals as well.
Jake eventually found a reporter who was interviewing the other athletes who won and who performed well at this World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics, Jake usually did not give interviews after marathons, but as the reporter was in front of him Jake could not just leave.
"Mr. Smith, may I have an interview with you?"
"Yes of course."
"Thank you so much, what did you feel after you first won a gold medal in a world cup?"
"It is very good, it is a great pride to win such a marathon with the best runners from various countries, especially since today I am representing my country which makes this victory more special."
"How do you feel when you"re just 18 and already having major achievements such as a gold medal in the Olympics and World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics and winning several of the world"s top marathons?"
"I think age is not very important in sport, anyone at all ages can win a race if they have the best performance on marathon day, I"m just happy to think that for my current age I can go on and on for several years running for more marathons."
"And this year do you plan to partic.i.p.ate in any other marathon or will you focus on basketball again?"
"I plan to partic.i.p.ate in one more marathon this year at least, maybe I can do another one before I focus fully on basketball."
"One last question, what did you think of the American team"s performance at the World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics this year?"
"I thought it was a very good performance, the athletes from my country worked as hard as I did and we couldn"t win more gold medals this year because the compet.i.tion was so tough and the athletes from other countries were better."
"Thank you for your time and congratulations again for winning the gold medal."
"Thank you."
Jake didn"t like these interviews very much because sometimes reporters might ask a question that made the athlete uncomfortable and might give the wrong answer, as well as the question of what Jake thought about the performance of the American team.
Even though Jake has relieved the American team and praised athletes from other countries which might be a good answer, he may have offended athletes from other countries who have competed in the World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics in other years that the American team won several medals of gold.
But he was happy for the victory and so didn"t care much about it, at the end of the day Jake went to a dinner party with some of the American athletes who won medals to celebrate this World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics.
Jake couldn"t drink, so he stayed for a short time at dinner so as not to disrupt the fun of the other athletes, the next day Jake would return to Miami to spend time with his mother until it was time to return to university later this month.
Jake wanted to see what the other players on the team would be like when they found out that Coach Dean Smith had left the team, he figured it would come as a surprise to everyone, but it wouldn"t be a problem for the team"s performance because he remembered that the team would have a great performance this year.
He hoped that by what he did last year on the team and with coach Guthridge in charge of the team he could play much longer and thus achieve better personal results than last year.
At the hotel resting Jake was happy in the room because he got the news from the system that he had received 1 statistic point in each physical statistic for winning the marathon at the World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics.
Jake didn"t count on those statistic points, but he thought he might end up getting to be a major international compet.i.tion for athletes, even after a few years that points to win the major circuit counted, the points in the World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics also counted.
"Fate, show me my statistics on my third job."
[Here it is.]
Statistics Jake
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[Name: Jake Smith]
[Age: 18 years]
[Job: Runner]
[Height: 2.01 m]
[Weight: 103 Kg]
[Force 42]
[Agility 39]
[Resistance 42]
[Intelligence 60]
[Luck 99]
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Techniques
[Second Lung A]
[Iron Body A]
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Seeing his stats Jake was happy to see that he was improving a lot because he could gain 1 more stat point in resistance and 1 stat point in agility after winning another major marathon.
That would help Jake a lot in marathons, and also when he needed his agility to run in close-ups, even the 5,000-meter and 10,000-meter events could be easier with more agility points.
Strength was important for Jake in basketball as well, even though he thought he had more strength than even the strongest Center and players from other positions in the NBA, it was important for him to play and also to increase accuracy in the three shots points.
Jake always trained hundreds of three-point shots every day he could to get a few more stamina bars that he gets as a reward for making many three-point shots, so he could see that after hundreds of tries his accuracy was better now than before with 4 points less strength.
But in the game, he didn"t know if this minimal improvement in accuracy could make such a difference, after all, Jake already had an incredible accuracy rate of over 70 percent in games, and that was an average of 8 shots of three points per game.
So he didn"t think this accuracy could improve much with just a few strong points, he realized that when the system said it could have nearly 80 percent hit rate with more than 50 strength points it was more or less correct.
After all, 4 strength points didn"t make much of a difference in accuracy, so maybe 8 more strength statistics could increase some hit rate points, and the accuracy also depended on his three-point shooting skills and some of his lucky too.
In the NBA he knew that his accuracy would only be lower because the opposing players in defense would only be better and the pressure for him to hit would only be higher, so the strength statistic was just one of the factors for Jake to hit more.
Even so, Jake was pleased because he knew that thanks to the system he had a big advantage over other basketball players, proof of that is the 70 percent hit rate with 8 out of three shots per game.
That number this season could increase to as much as 11 per game and the hit rate would decrease, but Jake would be happy if he scored more points for the Tar Heels team even if he had a lower hit rate.
The other day Jake returned to Miami and celebrated again with his mother and Anna when he got home, Jake still avoided going to the restaurant because in less than 15 days he would go to university again and did not want to cause unnecessary trouble for anyone.
Maybe by the time he got back early next year Lola had already forgotten about him and everything was going to be the same as before, his mother and Anna were so grateful that Jake understood that and didn"t bother with it.
They were amazed at how Jake had become arrogant after all he had achieved even though he was so young, he was very rich, handsome, famous, and achieved a number of achievements to make anyone arrogant, but still humble around people.
Also, even though she was excellent as a child, Anna and Eva realized how Jake matured and became a responsible adult over the years, he didn"t make many mistakes before.
Jake wouldn"t be proud if he knew his mother and Anna thought that of him, because he always had an adult mentality and only his age as a child, so it wasn"t for him to have matured with a few years.