Chapter 2357 - 598: The Freeloader Emperor (Part 2)
The equestrian events at this Olympics are split into six categories.
The individual and team dressage, individual and team show jumping, and the individual and team three-day event.
Huang Kaiwen is participating in the individual show jumping event.
In show jumping, whether you can clear a jump, and how much time you take, is evident to the spectators. Winning is winning; losing is losing.
But dressage is different.
The room for manipulation in this event is vast.
Of course.
This is also considered the most noble event within equestrian sports.
Equestrianism itself is a sport for the aristocracy.
Is making a horse dance high-class enough?
Whether the horse’s dance is good or not is decided by the judges.
If the penalties are unknown, then the deterrent is unpredictable.
A few professional judges along with a few artistic judges give you a score, and that score is final.
All belong to the aristocratic sports circle and maintain close ties with the British royal family.
If Huang Kaiwen agrees to coach England, he could ride a wooden horse and still win a championship.
Although the British royal family values the projects they still have influence over, a little reputation matters nothing in the face of interests.
The whole world wants to know if Huang Kaiwen will coach a national team at the World Cup two years later.
No one else has succeeded, but the British royal family succeeded.
This represents public support, and all those fans will become their supporters; there are hardly any people in the United Kingdom who are not football fans.
The royal family’s image will significantly improve, regaining much of the face lost after the Princess Diana incident.
Is rigging a competition still important?
Huang Kaiwen naturally understands this.
But dressage requires much from the horse and rider, needing extensive training.
Even if the British don’t care about reputation, Mr. Huang cares about his.
Judges can control scores, but you can’t control audience thoughts; in art, when levels are similar, there may not be much difference, and anyone winning makes sense.
But if all you do is resort to tricks and scream high notes, thinking you’re an artist, you’re underestimating the audience somewhat; even if they don’t understand, they can tell beauty from ugliness, and recognize pleasant from unpleasant sounds.
Huang Kaiwen doesn’t want his image to become like a fakir’s, with online jokes like "even a coma patient would vomit after watching your performance."
The same applies to team events.
Mr. Huang doesn’t have enough time to practice cooperation with others, so he only participates in individual events.
Seeing Huang Kaiwen silent, William continued, "Earlier we watched the Royal Ascot horse racing, and received some criticism saying horse racing is animal cruelty."
"Ha."
Huang Kaiwen countered, "Incidents abusing people frequently occur on the Iraq battlefield, why not ask them to persuade the Americans to withdraw troops? According to human morality, shouldn’t caring for humans come before animals? Only focusing compassion on animals is the most hypocritical approach."
William chuckled along.
Yet, this is something he couldn’t say.
But he indeed admires Huang Kaiwen, feeling nothing can chain him.
Kate attends family hunts with him.
Animal protection organizations protest.
Kate doesn’t attend family hunts with him.
Then people criticize Kate for not being sociable.
These things have never happened to Huang Kaiwen.
He seems never to have faced moral coercion aimed at him.
If he were to ask Gagliani, he’d realize there indeed are instances.
But whoever controls the media, controls the narrative. Korean celebrities frequently get picked as scapegoats; his approach is similar.
Using other news to overshadow these headlines is sufficient.
𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂
In cases where coverage cannot be suppressed, usually someone is targeting you.
But capitalists target you for profit; what profit is there in targeting Huang Kaiwen?
On one hand, he’s irreplaceable; on another, he’s united a segment of capital, with so many sponsors forming a collective of interests around Huang Kaiwen; harming his image means their endorsement fees also sink.
Those who want to target Huang Kaiwen must face numerous manufacturers and angry fans.
It even includes pressures from Vatican and several countries.
No interest in the world is vast enough for them to take such a risk, so it appears that Huang Kaiwen is unfettered.
All these stem from football.
One of the reasons Huang Kaiwen has never left the football field.
The two chatted for a while more before going to retrieve their cars.
Huang Kaiwen sat in the passenger seat as William drove him home, since they lived nearby.
It’s unsurprising that this matter will be reported again tomorrow.
Huang Kaiwen arrived home.
Gagliani was already waiting there.
He waited for Huang Kaiwen to wash up and change into casual clothes, then handed him a few pieces of clothing and said, "Recently, products related to the China National Team have sold well; likely many spectators will wear them at the opening ceremony."
"That’s good."
Huang Kaiwen said with a smile.
"Looks great."
Inzaghi, who had just returned, picked up the clothes and tried them on. After seeing the tags, he asked in surprise, "Why have they become much cheaper? Similar outfits sold in Milan are more expensive."
When bored, he would browse sports shops to see if fans were buying his jerseys.
He knows about pricing fairly well.
Huang Kaiwen and Gagliani exchanged a smile without giving Inzaghi an explanation.
During the upcoming broadcast, when many foreigners in the stands are wearing the China National Team merchandise, does it indicate an increase in national image and influence?
Who influenced this?
Sponsors make a little profit off the Yellow Ball King but will earn it back in other ways.