This week, China saw another marathon super weekend, with a string of exciting races. Besides the high-profile Wuxi Marathon, the Wuhan Marathon and the Chengdu World Heritage Marathon were also successfully held today.
The crowd favorite Zhu Qing performed excellently, once again setting a PB and delivering a surprise. Together with He Jie, who ran back-to-back, they took the Wuhan Marathon's top domestic honors, with Zhu finishing a strong fourth overall.
This year's Wuhan Marathon is stacked with stars. Several Xtep-contracted athletes — He Jie, Dong Guojian, Zhu Qing, Huang Fei and others — will don their colors to defend home honor. He Jie, who just returned from Seoul, is a focal point: can he recover his form and reproduce last year's race-record performance? Meanwhile,'the 'People's No.1' Zhu Qing andPB holder Huang Fei — the meeting of these two long-time on-course rivals is also highly anticipated.
5 kilometers later the foreign athletes' contingent began to accelerate; He Jie, Dong Guojian, and Yang Dinghong remained in the lead group. When the main pack ran onto the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, the distance reached10 kilometers, Musa Mitai and He Jie were in the top two positions, with a time of 30 minutes 58 seconds; Tamir Adla led the women's group, with a time of 34 minutes 36 seconds, with domestic women's runner Zhu Qing temporarily in first.
As the race progressed, the men's lead group was down to just six runners, with Dong Guojian and He Jie among them. At 20 km the men's lead group passed in 1:01:50, and the women's lead group in 1:08:44. Zhu Qing was 2 minutes 16 seconds behind the lead group, sitting fifth overall, with an average pace of 3:34 per kilometer.
At 23 km Dong Guojian was dropped by the lead group, leaving He Jie to take on five foreign athletes on his own. At 33 km Ethiopian runner Tafa began to surge, and He Jie was left behind, but he put on a mask of pain and fought to close the gap.
Ultimately, Kenyan runner John Mururi powered to victory with a strong final sprint, finishing in 2 hours 10 minutes 16 seconds. He Jie held up under the pressure, clocking 2 hours 11 minutes to become the top Chinese finisher and placing fourth overall. Veteran Dong Guojian closely followed to take second among Chinese runners and fifth overall.
Kenyan athleteVeronica Maina won the women's title in 2:24:14, breaking the race record. Zhu Qing launched a powerful sprint in the final 50 meters and narrowly missed the podium by one second, but her 2:28:45 finish gave her another PB, making her the top Chinese woman and fourth overall — congratulations to Zhu Qing!
This year's Chengdu World Heritage Marathon had15000 full marathon runners and20000 half marathon runners competing together; well-known entertainer Wallace Chung also took part in the half-marathon this year. Both the half and full marathons started and finished at Dujiangyan City Phoenix Stadium, and the course crosses three World Heritage sites: the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, Mount Qingcheng, and the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries.
After the start, Qi Liansheng and Chen Baifa formed the lead group and alternated at the front, quickly opening up a gap on the main pack behind them. On the women's side, Yang Xinyun led.
At the five-kilometre mark, Qi Liansheng 16 minutes 29 seconds to pass first, with Chen Baifa one second behind. Yang Xinyun recorded 18 minutes 37 seconds to remain in first among the women. After that the race settled into a steady rhythm with little overall change.
In the later stages of the raceQi Liansheng began to surge, gradually running into a "no-man's land", and ultimately claimed the men's title with a time of 2:17:58.The women's titlewas taken by Yang Xinyun.
Congratulations to all the athletes on their outstanding performances!
