Chapter 503: Grand Slam

Chapter 503: Grand Slam

“Good heavens! Is that the Imperial Capital Winter Olympics chair? A bit too good-looking, isn’t she?”

“You don’t even know Goddess Yang?”

“What an aura, truly!”

“...”

“It’s Meng Fan, no doubt!”

“Hearing the first bit, it had to be him!”

“He actually won Best Newcomer—shameless, what kind of newcomer is he? Debut at the peak, maxed out from the start!”

“Haha, the strongest newcomer in history is still a newcomer, no problem!”

“...”

As Meng Fan took his first award, the live-stream chat burst into life, all blessings expressed through teasing, and then everyone waited for Meng Fan to go up and accept (show off) his prize.

“Thank you.”

Amid applause, Meng Fan stepped onto the stage and took the trophy from Mu Yiyang. He had collected many medals, but this seemed only his second trophy. He weighed it—quite substantial—then walked two steps to the microphone, raised the trophy, and another wave of applause erupted.

“Thank you, thank you!”

Meng Fan’s smile was radiant, his voice magnetic, like a spring breeze: “I thank the committee for granting me this award! As you all know, I was nominated in six categories. Among those six, this is the one I wanted most. No joke, and no false modesty. The other five—if I miss them this time, there’s always another chance. But this Best Newcomer award comes once in a lifetime. Miss it, and you can never get it back.”

Meng Fan’s words were quite honest, and he continued his “modesty”: “As a newcomer, I will forge ahead, strive harder, and work to achieve even better results.”

With a bow, he smoothly left the stage.

But soon after stepping down, he was back up, because after Best Newcomer came the Best Breakthrough Award, for which Meng Fan had been nominated and smoothly won.

The annual Best Breakthrough Award is generally given to individuals or teams that have made breakthrough progress in a certain event, or who have broken through again after reaching a high level.

For example, Feng Shanshan, who won in 2017, was a Chinese athlete who made a huge breakthrough in golf. She was the first Chinese female athlete to win a professional golf Grand Slam championship and the first Chinese golfer to win an Olympic medal, achieving a major breakthrough in a field where China was not traditionally strong.

Another example is Long Qingquan from 2016. After winning the weightlifting gold at the 2008 Imperial Capital Olympics, he went silent for a long time. Overcoming numerous difficulties, he returned to the Olympic stage in 2016 to win gold again and break the world record, achieving a personal breakthrough that also pushed the entire event forward.

Meng Fan’s win combined both aspects: first, he won the championship in the heaviest weight class—a category where Chinese athletes in weightlifting, wrestling, and judo were not strong and had never achieved good results; second, he broke the record, raising the world record to a terrifying height. Whether in his personal performance, China’s achievements in the field, or even the ceiling of the entire event, Meng Fan had raised it all—truly a breakthrough of limits!

“Thank you!”

Handing the first trophy to Wu Tong, Meng Fan went on stage again and humbly gave his acceptance speech: “Once again, thank the committee! Thank my three coaches—Xiao Yunlin, Hu Cunyong, and Dean Zhan—for their trust in me. I was originally a student, buried in comics. If not for their trust and pressure to let me join the national team and compete for the country, I would never have achieved these results or made this breakthrough. They say swift horses are common, but discerning riders are rare. I, this fat horse, am lucky to have met three riders at once.”

Xiao Yunlin, Hu Cunyong, and Dean Zhan sat below, deeply gratified, faces full of smiles. For a coach, the greatest happiness is to cultivate an outstanding student—especially for those who transitioned from athlete to coach, the deepest wish is to produce an athlete better than themselves.

After the Best Breakthrough Award was presented, the ceremony didn’t immediately move to the next award but inserted a performance. Yes, the sports awards ceremony also had performances, but not by invited singers or dancers—athletes entertained themselves. Athletes generally love singing; for many, listening to music is the most common way to relax after intense training. And indeed, quite a few athletes sing well. While reaching professional singer level is a stretch, having fun among themselves is no problem.

Well, it was live-streamed.

If before it was hard to say who sang best in the sports world, now it was definitely Meng Fan.

Meng Fan certainly had a performance task. He initially wanted to decline—everyone else was just having fun, and he, being more professional than the pros, shouldn’t join in—but he couldn’t get out of it, so he asked to be scheduled last. If he sang first, it might affect others’ performances. Actually, he was overthinking it. Athletes have strong mental fortitude; no matter how well he sang, it wouldn’t affect them much. These athletes had sung with famous singers on many occasions, unafraid, and could even throw the singers off-key. So how could they be influenced by Meng Fan, who wasn’t even singing at the same time?

After the performance, the awards continued, starting with Best Duo and Best Team.

The Best Duo award went to the table tennis mixed doubles pair. Mixed doubles in table tennis first entered the Olympic family in 2020; before that, there was no such event. Japan added this event hoping to use their strong mixed doubles team to snatch a gold from the Chinese table tennis team, but China still won it.

This was the first table tennis mixed doubles gold in Olympic history, and the duo winning the annual Best Duo award was almost a foregone conclusion.

As for Best Team, it ultimately went to the Chinese judo mixed team. The gold won by Meng Fan’s Chinese judo mixed team was also the first gold in that event in Olympic history. Moreover, Chinese judo, not favored, had overcome strong opponents to win, so the judo mixed team defeating the women’s volleyball team for this award was well-deserved.

After these two awards came the Best Coach award.

Historically, the Best Coach award usually went to coaches of the Best Duo or Best Team winners. There were exceptions—for example, Xiang Feiren’s coach won it twice, and so did Dean Zhan.

Of course, there was another special case: sometimes more than one coach won. For instance, in 2011, the Fat Official and the badminton team’s “agent” both received the Best Coach award.

This time, the Best Coach award also went to two people: one was the table tennis mixed doubles coach (not the Fat Official, who was no longer a coach but the Table Tennis Association Chairman), and the other was Xiao Yunlin.

“Congratulations, Old Xiao!”

Hu Cunyong was a bit sour but sincerely congratulated him. He knew he was the least likely among the five nominees—wrestling might soon leave the Olympic family, there were no team or duo events in wrestling, and though the wrestling team had achieved better results than before, they still lagged behind the other four nominees’ teams. He sighed inwardly—winning or not didn’t matter; he just hoped for another nomination next time!

“Better get your speech ready, haha!”

Dean Zhan laughed heartily, not sour at all, though he slapped Xiao Yunlin’s shoulder a bit harder than usual.

Meng Fan breathed a long sigh of relief. He had been uneasy about the nomination—joining in the fun was fine, but even if the industry deemed his coaching contributions worthy of the award, he didn’t really want to win it.

After that came another performance—a modern dance by the synchronized swimming team’s young ladies, very beautiful. The live-stream chat was flooded with comments.

Next came the Best Male Athlete award, one of the highest honors of the ceremony. Without any surprise, Meng Fan won it.

Then he also won the Most Popular Male Athlete award. With five wins out of six nominations, aside from the Best Coach award, as an athlete, this was a Laureus Grand Slam.

(The End)