This morning, the 2026 Siguniang Mountain Yunjian Huajing Trail Run and Golden League China Series Finals took place as scheduled.

In this race, Fan Banglin and Zhang Ting won the men's and women's titles respectively, each also taking the 250,000 yuan grand prize as first place in the men's and women's Lighthouse Program.

Guan Yousheng and Yang Chunlong finished second and third in the men's race; Xiong Binbin and Zheng Wenrong took second and third in the women's race.

Last night's rain left the course noticeably wet and muddy — which shoes would the athletes choose as their battle shoes for this final showdown?

In our tally we found that the shoes worn by athletes who appeared on the leaderboard at this race were the same as those they wore at the Golden League's previous stage, the Wulang Qingyang Mountain Trail race. That may be because today's course conditions and distance were similar to the Shennongjia race day, and the shoes had already been well broken in with the athletes — so in the finals many still chose the safest, most reliable pair: their familiar partners.

On the men's side, Fan Banglin again chose the SALOMON S/LAB PULSAR 3. It has accompanied Fan through consecutive races at Jilongding and Shennongjia.

Guan Yousheng stuck with the shoes he won Shennongjia in: a test model KAILAS FUGA YAO SPEED.

Yang Chunlong chose Anta's flagship high-performance trail racing shoe — the Anta 猎隼 SPEED RC, the same shoe he wore in his first off-road race.

On the women's side, Zhang Ting also continued with the Li-Ning De Lu 2 PRO, standing on the Golden League finals podium in the same shoes she used to win at Shennongjia and to place third earlier at Jilongding.

Xiong Binbin, as at Shennongjia, chose the KAILAS FUGA PRO 4 he wore last time.

Zheng Wenrong, like Yang Chunlong, also chose the Anta 猎隼 SPEED RC.

Among the top three in both the men's and women's fields, Anta and KAILAS each accounted for two pairs, while Li-Ning and Salomon had one apiece.

These shoes have repeatedly carried these athletes onto Golden League podiums and even to multiple titles. It seems that for professional runners, the maxim "find the shoe that suits you, the course conditions, and the distance" still applies.