Chapter 299: The Athlete Album

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Led by head coach Zhizhong Gu, the core members of the national table tennis team went to Sweden for the Swedish Open of the ITTF. Dai Li, as a physical coach, however, could not go to Sweden. He could only watch the games on the live broadcast online.

Seeing the athletes he had trained playing in an international match, Dai Li felt a tinge of nervousness. He was afraid that they might slip up. But Dai Li soon found that this worry was not necessary at all.

Although there were many good players from Japan, Korea, and Europe, no one could escape defeat when confronted with the national team's core players. It was even very difficult for the foreign players to win one single game in a match. If they could win two, that would have been an even bigger surprise.

The singles became an inner competition of the national table tennis team at the semi-finals. As for the doubles, the national team sent only one pair of players each for both the men's and women's matches, both of which partnerships won the championships.

Without a doubt, the Chinese national table tennis team had absolute dominating power over the teams from all the other countries. The last match of the Swedish Open was the final of the men's singles between Anshan Wang and Shuang Pang. Anshan Wang won the championship with a score of 4:2.

The match finally ended, and Dai Li, who had been watching the games live on his cell phone, heaved a long sigh of relief. Then, he found that his system was once again updated.

"Upgraded, finally! Senior phase of top-level coach!" Dai Li couldn't help but be excited.

The last upgrade had been more than one year ago, during the Asian Games. Thanks to the several gold medals won by his trainees in the Asian Games, he had upgraded to the intermediate phase of top-level coach. After that, he had begun a long period of experience-accumulating.

The experience Dai Li gained was closely related to the level of the athlete he trained. The best athlete in the national track and field team was only of A level talent, and the ability value was not so high, so they were not sufficient for the upgrading requirements of Dai Li.

During the period when he went back to the provincial team, he had been training athletes of an even lower level. So, the empirical value points he gained were even less. At that time, Dai Li had believed he might never upgrade again. Things had improved after he went to the provincial table tennis team as a physical coach.

One of the reasons why Dai Li had been willing to join the national table tennis team was that he thought he could gain more empirical value points by coaching these top-level athletes of the world.

It was as expected by Dai Li, as, when coaching a group of athletes of S level talent and ability value of above 900, his empirical value had indeed soared. During his one month working in the national table tennis team, the empirical value points that he gained were equal to those that he had gained in the previous several months.

Meanwhile, the empirical award gained via the competition results of the athletes he coached was also an important key element. Like the Swedish Open table tennis match, the Chinese national team had won 6 medals in the men's and women's singles and 2 medals in men's and women's doubles. These triumphs were all related to Dai Li's coaching. Therefore, Dai Li won tens of thousands of empirical value points and upgraded to the senior phase of top-level coach.

Dai Li knew that there were a lot of chances for the players of the national table tennis team to attend such world-level matches, and that when they went, they would for sure win the championships, even win almost of the medals. For Dai Li, each and every medal would mean another huge deposit of empirical value points.

This is vastly differently from the national track and field team. Actually, there are more world level track and field games than those of table tennis. There are the Diamond League, the Grand Prix, the Super Grand Prix, Millrose Games...They go almost year-round!

But the athletes of the national track and field team, due to their limited performance level, have no chance to compete in those world level games. The highest-level games they go to are the Asian games. So, even if Dai Li could have Li Xue's position, there would still be no way for him to gain so many empirical value points.

…

"I am now a senior-phase top-level coach now. What's the next level?" Dai Li asked.

The system answered, "The next level would be Famous Coach. Upgrading to the next higher level would cost 300,000 empirical value points."

"So many points? It would take 3 or 4 years to earn 300,000 empirical value points through daily coaching, even in the national table tennis team. It seems that I have to have more of my trainees attend more games, and win more championships. This is the only way for me to upgrade at a faster pace."

Dai Li lowered his head to think about the matter. There would be two Opens, the Table Tennis World and the annual final of the Pro Tour. Even if the national table tennis team won all the medals in all of those games, it would still not be enough for Dai Li to earn the empirical value points needed to upgrade.

But next year, there would be more table tennis games. At the beginning of next year, there would be the opens in the European countries, like Hungary, Germany, and Switzerland, then the opens in the Asian countries, like Qatar, Kuwait, Japan and Korea. More importantly, the Olympic Games would be held in August of next year. The four gold medals for men's singles, women's singles, men's team and women's team would certainly bring a huge amount of empirical value points for Dai Li.

"If I am lucky, I can upgrade to be a Famous Coach next year, once the Olympic Games finish!" Hope arose in Dai Li's heart. He even began to rejoice that he had been chosen to come to the national table tennis team. It was an absolutely correct choice. If it had been in some other sports, it would not be quick for Dai Li to accumulate his empirical value points.

"Now it is time for a bonus! Show me what upgrade bonus I have gotten." Dai Li asked in his mind, and the system set the bonus in front of him.

There were two bonus items. The one on the left was a skill book. Dai Li was quite familiar with the appearance of the skill books, so he recognized it at first glance.

On the right, however, was a big album-like book with a hard cover. It was like one of those big photo albums that were popular in the past, and it had a texture of wood grain.

The album was very thick, thicker than an ordinary dictionary, almost as thick as CIHAI, the large-scale dictionary and encyclopedia of Standard Mandarin Chinese.

"My gosh. What is this? it's so big and thick, and made of high quality materials. It must be something good!" Dai Li was immensely attracted by the album, believing subconsciously that it must be precious.

Dai Li took the album and turned to the first page. It was blank, with no words or pictures.

The second page, still blank, with no words or pictures.

The third page, still blank, with no words or pictures.

Dai Li flipped through all the several dozens of pages, only to find that they were all blank, without even a page number.

"What is this? A book of blank paper?" Dai Li was totally upset.

The system's voice sounded, "It is your Athlete Album."

"Athlete Album? What is it used for?" Dai Li asked immediately.

"You may put the information about the athletes into the Athlete Album. Everything about the athlete can be recorded in it, including information concerning physical conditions, skill features, advantages and weakness, experience, on-the-spot judgements, everything. In this way, you may have a detailed database. Even if an athlete is removed from your coaching list, you can still check the data regarding him or her," the system answered.

"Sounds like stamp collecting. But how is it useful to me?" Dai Li asked.

"Of course it is useful! Just imagine, if you could collect all the best athletes of each sport in the world into this one album, how intoxicating the sense of achievement would be! When you are old, you may look at this album and recall all the athletes you have coached. What a beautiful memory it would be!"

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