The Sprint Final

Text 1: Lane Four, by Chidi Ballantyne

An original novel extract.

The stadium was so loud that it had become a kind of silence, a solid wall of sound that Tia could no longer pick apart. She shook out her hands. She shook out her legs. She did not look at the girl in lane five, who had beaten her twice this season and who was smiling, actually smiling, as if this were a picnic.

‘On your marks.’ Tia walked forward and crouched and set her feet against the blocks, toes pressed into the track, fingertips spread on the white line like a pianist about to play. The rubber smelled hot. Her heart was going so hard she could feel it in her throat, in her ears, in the soles of her feet.

‘Set.’ Her hips rose. Every muscle in her body tightened and held, a bow drawn back to its limit. Nothing moved. The crowd had vanished. There was only the track stretching away, the finish line a thin white thread at the end of it, and the terrible, endless second of waiting for the gun. She did not breathe. She did not blink. She was a held note, waiting to be played.

How does Chidi Ballantyne use language and structure to show Tia’s tension before the race?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.