(image: Shanghai International Marathon Organizing Committee)
SHANGHAI, China, May 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Early in this morning (April 22nd), runners from all over the country and even around the world gathered together here at the foot of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower in Lujiazui, Pudong. They came for the event of the 2018 Bright Dairy Change U · Shanghai International Half Marathon, got together for “absolute half marathon” and cheered for “two marathons in one city”. Today, 15000 runners confidently set foot on this vibrant and beautiful racing track, kicking off the pure and special competition in Pudong, Shanghai.
At 7 a.m., leaders and distinguished guests including Xu Bin (Secretary of the Party Committee and Director of the Sports Bureau of Shanghai Municipality), Li Guohua and Zhu Di (Vice Governor of the Pudong New Area), Wang Qiang (Board Chairman of Donghao Lansheng Group), Chen Yiping (Vice Chairman of the Sports Federation of Shanghai Municipality), Luo Hai (Vice President of Bright Dairy) jointly shot the starting pistol for the 2018 Bright Dairy Change U · Shanghai International Half Marathon. Luo Wenhua (Deputy Director of the Sports Bureau of Shanghai Municipality) presided over the launching ceremony.
To create a world-class half marathon event, the organizing committee invited nearly 40 specially-invited international outstanding athletes to participate in the competition. The weather then was sunny to cloudy with 3 to 4 grade southerly wind and with fairly good quality air. The perfect event security setting gave the top-ranking athletes a helping hand in achieving excellent results. At last, the male athlete Geoffrey Kimutai Koech from Kenya became the first one to cross the finish line after 1 hour, 3 minutes and 16 seconds and the female athlete Haftamnesh Tesfay Haylu from Ethiopia took the lead in female with 1 hour, 12 minutes and 32 seconds.
After four years of development and accumulation, the 2018 Bright Chang U Shanghai International Half Marathon has won the support and love of countless marathon runners with the event slogan “absolute half marathon” and the certainly worth expecting splendid performance. This year, the Shanghai International Half Marathon has provided more professional and meticulous service and perfect event security, achieving a half marathon competition rate of 98% shown by the statistical data of the timing chips of the organizing committee.
Behind the event slogan of “absolute half marathon and absolute spectacular” comes the support of all sectors of society. With the support of various departments and sectors such as the Sports Bureau of Shanghai Municipality, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning, the Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission, the Shanghai Afforestation and City Appearance Management Bureau, the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau, the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau, the Shanghai Communications Administration, the Shanghai Construction Committee and the joint endeavor of the cadres and workers of Pudong New Area, nearly ten thousand security team members have built a secure service network for the event, safeguarding the smooth running of the event participants.
Elaborate Preparations and Adoption of World-Class Game Standards
The Shanghai International Half Marathon, which has made improvements together with the marathon runners, aims at accompanying the runners in facing the challenges of half marathon with its quality event platform, professional event supporting service and perfect track route. For the year of 2018, adopting the world-class road running competition standards as its professional code, taking “runners come first” as its philosophy and targeting at making the Shanghai International Half Marathon event as Shanghai city’s icon, the organizing committee has tried its best to provide the marathon runners with excellent event experience including event setting, en route supply, innovative service and the comprehensive security after crossing the finish line with the most professional attitude.
This year, the most creative and surprising item to the marathon runners is the new friend on the track-BLUE LINE, which is the national first application of the event running track with the shortest distance, namely following this specific line at every turn will be exactly 21.0975 kilometers. This shortest event running track has not only enabled the specially-invited world-class athletes to create better event results, but also has given quite a number of marathon runners the chance to break their PB (Personal Best).
The event has adopted the method of starting with different starting pistols and has divided the 15000 athletes into 3 zones – Zone A, Zone B and Zone C based on their competition results, with the athletes of Zone A and Zone B starting their marathon running at 7:00 and the athletes of Zone C at 7:15. This event setting has not only relieved the pressure of the saturated event track but also offered the runners a comfortable running track as much as possible. The professional event setting has boosted the event specialty. While putting runners first has always been the core philosophy, the Shangma Series will continue its efforts in optimizing the participating experience of the runners and combining profession and humanization to the best
Multiple Protections to Safeguard the 3 Hours for 15000 Athletes
In order to make a first-class half marathon event and to add another brand-new city card to Shanghai, the event organizing committee takes safety as its core philosophy and escorts the participating runners with more professional and more meticulous service based on the concerted efforts and close coordination of the event operation team, the medical aid team, the public security and protection team and the volunteer team. The design of the beautiful, smooth and totally-enclosed track makes the participating athletes experience the marathon in a more secure, more dedicated and more enjoyable way.
Taking into account of the sultry weather, the organizing committee has set up drinking water and beverage stations from 5 kilometers away from the starting point, add-water stations from 7.5 kilometers from the starting point and also added ice bucket equipment to each sponging station to facilitate the timely hydration and cooling for the participants. There are 5 spray stations along the marathon track, located at 8 kilometers, 11 kilometers, 13.4 kilometers, 17.8 kilometers and 19.8 kilometers away from the starting point respectively. With the aim of providing safeguarding in a more secure and abundant way, 3 energy supply points are established from 12 kilometers to give the runners a hand by offering them supplies such as carefully selected bananas, cherry tomatoes and cakes which are suitable for supplementing physical energy.
There are altogether 21 medical aid stations and 10 ambulances for medical care. This year, 17 groups of people are responsible for medical tours on bicycles, consisting of professional doctors with AED and emergency volunteers. Cycling medical care team members scatter in the participating runners along the marathon track in order to observe the physical state of the runners more closely and respond to emergencies more rapidly. For the purpose of making the runners participate in the marathon event more securely, the organizing committee staff equips every medical aid station with AED along the track. Together with the AEDs of the cycling medical care team members, a total number of 88 AEDs are provided, which is the highest number of AEDs in domestic half marathon events. The event is equipped with more than 800 security staff, 140 judges and 1598 volunteers, transforming every 100 meters of the 21.0975 kilometers into safe distance and weaving a strong safety network to safeguard every participant.
Intimate Service – A Complete Demonstration of the Elegant Demeanour of Shangma
The 2018 Shanghai International Half Marathon takes the idea of putting runners first as its core philosophy and aims at meeting the requirements of the runners with the most intimate service, the most humanized setting, trying to optimize the participating experience of the runners as much as possible and helping the runners bring out their best running performance.
The 2018 Shanghai International Half Marathon remains to cooperate with Shanghai Shentong Metro in launching metro souvenir tickets. The humanity reflected from the ticket is deeply loved by the runners, for it could satisfy the journey needs of the runners and could also be kept as a souvenir.
Along the marathon track, the organizing committee has elaborately set up musical cheering stations, cheering squads and drum bands with the purpose of making the runners fully enjoy the surrounding competition atmosphere while embracing the landscape and culture of Pudong. This year, in addition to official supplies, personal supply stations are set up on Qianyao Road and Qiantan Avenue. Early in the morning, the supporting groups came to their individual sections to lay out their supplies orderly and cheered for the runners of their groups along the marathon track, adding a human touch to the whole running track.
At the Oriental Sports Center, the finish line of the half marathon, a family marathon-watching area is first set up to prevent the runners from feeling lonely when they cross the finish line. One hour after the starting of the competition, quite a lot of family relatives arrived at the area, waiting for their relatives and friends to make a sprint at the finish. Their cheers and shouting gave the half marathon heroes a great sense of ceremony and honour, making the runners fully enjoy their own moments of glory.
At the finish line of the marathon games, yesterday and today, there are some different kinds of landscape. The 2018 Adidas Kids Mini-Marathon was successfully completed yesterday. A total number of 173 groups of families signed up for two marathon events – the Kids Mini-Marathon yesterday and the Half Marathon today at the same time. Those families who signed up for two events will get the opportunity to take part in the parent-child medal presentation activity. What the Shanghai International Half Marathon wants to give the runners are the change from “one person’s marathon” to “marathon for the family”, the different ways of participating in and experiencing half marathon for Shanghai people and the warm and unforgettable marathon weekend with the mutual participation of both the runners and their families.
After the competition, the organizing committee has offered the runners of the Shanghai International Half Marathon a new benefit – 10 seconds of video of their crossing the finish line in addition to the traditional service of sending first-time competition results in text messages to the runners and preparing all the event pictures within three days for the runners. Every runner who has crossed the finish line will have access to their own video of finishing the competition afterwards, making the memory of the event more dynamic and the marathon more memorable for the runners.
Absolute Spectacular || “Two Marathons in One City” – Anticipating Participation by All People
The Shangma carries with it the city image, spirit and influence of Shanghai, and the burst of vibration, passion and positive energy of the Shanghai International Half Marathon appeal to every citizen. A new phase of “two marathons in one city” for road running has been opened and this “absolute half marathon” is worth the expectation of everyone.
At the staging area of the starting point, 60 volunteers are responsible for the collection and recycling of garbage. When all the participants threw themselves forwards from the starting line, Lujiazui restored peaceful gradually. 30 sanitation workers of Pudong New Area began to carry out their work in an orderly and efficient manner, aiming to complete the track cleaning and restore urban transportation. The warm reminders and the propaganda of civilized participation before the official start of the event have displayed the concepts of civilized sports and have cultivated an absolutely environmental-friendly running etiquette among all the participants.
The event enjoyed live broadcast by Great Sports Channel, network broadcast by MIGU and Sina Sports, interactive communication through new media and synchronized broadcast by Great Sports Channel Micro TV, achieving real-time interaction with runners and adding color to this road running carnival of ten thousand runners. The 10 seconds video keeps record of the moments of every runner crossing the finish line, giving the runners the chance to enjoy the playback of their final moments based on the time of their crossing the finish line. In addition, the event clips of the 2018 Shanghai International Half Marathon will be available in more than 145 foreign cities and can be played through television broadcast.
The 2018 Shanghai International Half Marathon can be described as a boisterous event. In order to better encourage and stimulate the passion of the runners, players of Shanghai Bright Ubest Women’s Volleyball Club came to present medals for the first 100 runners crossing the finish line. The star Yang Youning arrived at the finish line 15 minutes before the completion of the event and awarded honorary medals for the last runners to cross the finish line and took pictures together.
After four years of development and accumulation, the Shanghai International Half Marathon bears with it not only the heavy expectations of the runners but also the greatest support and deepest love of the vast citizens, even the whole city of Shanghai. The Shanghai International Half Marathon will continue its efforts in becoming an event of international level comparable to world-class competitions and also the half marathon hall of honour in the hearts of the runners.
name: Lily Li
email: general@shmarathon.com
Source: Shanghai International Marathon Organizing Committee via GLOBE NEWSWIRE
