Rescuers hadn’t reached him until about 7pm. At some point he lost consciousness and woke up in hospital. Wang said he found six or seven others, also in dire straits, and he urged them to keep moving but they couldn’t. “I lost control of my hands and feet, I could only crawl, keep climbing, keep climbing … I told myself that I can’t stop, must keep up my body temperature, stay alive, and see my family.” He repeatedly pressed his GPS emergency button. He struggled for 20 minutes to open his emergency blanket, only for it to be ripped out of his hands by the wind. He told China News the weather turned at about 1pm, after he had run 17 miles. Wang Jin-ming, 42, was among the runners who ended up in hospital. “There is nowhere to rest and you can’t stop and the exposed mountains … But on this day, the problems were magnified,” the anonymous competitor said. Competitors have variously described it as a treacherous and technical part of the route with 1,000 metres of elevation, requiring some climbing. The weather deteriorated between the second and third checkpoints: a five-mile stretch of trail, 15 miles into the route. The Gansu ultramarathon had been run three times before, but this was a new route, through remote mountain territory. Fellow competitor Zhang Xiaotao described seeing Huang between the two checkpoints, alive and continuing but “in bad shape”. A friend described him as a “sensitive” man whose greatest joy in life was running. Hearing- and speech-impaired, Huang won the men’s hearing-impaired marathon at the 2019 National Paralympic Games. Paralympian Huang Ganjun also died during the race. By the time rescuers found them, three of the four, including Liang, had died. He was experienced, having won – among others – a 250-mile (400km) race through the Gobi desert in 2018.Īccording to China News Weekly, he was one of four competitors who sheltered in a cave, accompanied by two local villagers. Nicknamed Liang God, the 31-year-old father of a two-year-old was well known in China as a champion racer. Competitors have described being blindsided by the cold, losing feeling in their extremities, passing people who retired early and were descending the track, and coming across others who were foaming at the mouth or lying motionless.Īmong those who died during the Huanghe Shilin Mountain Marathon in Gansu’ s Yellow River Stone Forest was record-holder Liang Jing, last photographed leading the pack, wearing shorts and a thin jacket. Runners were pelted with rain, hail and gale-force winds. Within hours, the temperature on the mountain in north-western China would drop far below zero.
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