"Standing in the carriage of Beijing Subway Line 1 at 6:08 in the morning, surrounded by marathon runners." This experience has passed for runners like Tian Tongsheng who participated in the previous Beijing Marathon. 1099 days.
At 7:30 a.m. on November 6, the 2022 Beijing Marathon (hereinafter referred to as the "North Marathon"), which had been violated for two years due to the epidemic, shot and ran in Tiananmen Square, which became the normalization of the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic. It was the first large-scale mass sports event held in Beijing.
After 6 hours, 16 minutes and 51 seconds, the 86-year-old runner Zhang Shun crossed the finish line in the company of a group of ending "rabbits" (pacemen-reporter's note), becoming the last runner to cross the line in this North Horse race. The video of him insisting on finishing the race quickly spread all over the Internet, and Gao Zan commented: "Will we still meet on the track when we are 86 years old?" It means more than the end.
Back to the field, old horses and new recruits
This year, the first person to reach the finish line in North Malaysia was Anubaike Kuwan, a Kazakh player from Xinjiang. Another well-known name of him in the running circle is "Buick". He has rarely reached the top of the competition stage before, but After 4 years of training and living in Beijing, he improved his personal best by 5 minutes, surpassing many national team players in 2 hours, 14 minutes and 34 seconds, and won the championship.
What is even more surprising than Kuwan is that Xia Yuyu, who won the women's championship with a time of 2 hours, 28 minutes and 57 seconds, is not even a special guest of this event. The graduate student at Tsinghua University said, "This can show the competitive level of athletes. The event is very precious, and I thank everyone for the opportunity to play together.”
"One person can run 42.195 kilometers, but it's more like a practice than a race." Tian Tongsheng, a "hundred-horse uncle" who has completed hundreds of marathons, has led many people to stand on the track in the past 13 years. In his view, experiencing sports The whole process of the competition is an indispensable part. "The national anthem is played and sung, the starting gunshots, the shouts of the audience, and the medals. These elements make the taste of the 'game' more real."
When the national anthem was played and sung before the firing of the gun, Wang Liping, the race walking champion of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, "suddenly regained the feeling of participating in the competition".
After the game, she revealed in a live broadcast with Zhang Qing, a sports marketing expert and founder of Key Way, that on the eve of the game, she still laughed at herself and said, "I have experienced all competitions, and I am a North Horse, and I am so excited that I can't sleep. ." Since retiring, Wang Liping has been committed to the promotion of scientific running. During the epidemic, many people continued to train under her leadership. "After learning that North Malaysia returned, they began to enter a state of intense preparations." , Wang Liping's running team has more than 20 people participating, "most of them are PB (best score - reporter's note)."
Improving the level of competition was also what Tian Tongsheng paid most attention to when running, but when the competition calendar changed from "20 races a year" in 2019 to "one race every 3 years", the work content changed from taking domestic runners to experience foreign tracks, Switching to serving more runners with self-media, the 69-year-old decided to slow down and "look at things other than running."
In this year's North Horse, Tian Tongsheng took two photos, one was when he ran past Tiananmen Square, "while the track is not crowded this year", he and a reader took pictures with each other, "I used to be reluctant to delay two or three minutes, one minute It takes a few hundred meters to go out." The other is about 3 kilometers of the track, he took a group photo with his old classmates who came to cheer, "This year is the 40th year of North Malaysia, the 40th anniversary of our university graduation, and I want to keep some memories in the race. On the road." Tian Tongsheng noticed that although there were not as many spectators on both sides of the track this year, there were a lot more fresh faces on the track, and short and warm interactions like this also increased significantly, "Many families run alone. Just by driving one family, several families can influence a community.”
"Old horses bring new recruits." Many interviewees observed that a group of runners who grew up during the epidemic appeared on the North Horse Track this year, "In the case of dormant road running events, some elite runners will keep training nearby. Habits, and slowly drive some small white runners to join, and a dozen people gradually grow into dozens of people, thus forming a large number of running groups of different sizes." Zhang Qing said that seed users should not be underestimated, and their experience and enthusiasm are the way to go. The running industry stores energy for the winter.
"Flare" or "Pathfinder"
On November 3, 3 days before the start of the North Marathon, the Shanghai Marathon Organizing Committee announced that the Shanghai Marathon will gather again at 7 am on November 27, and the starting gun will be fired for the 26th time.
This news has boosted the outside world's confidence in the "Ultra Marathon Weekend", which is the only remaining North Horse, to be held as scheduled, and has also cast its eyes on the recovery of the road running industry.
When the outside world tried to interpret the "signal", Ren Junshen, CEO of Zhongjian Sports, "standardized" the word as a positive "information". As a practitioner with more than 20 years of experience in the operation and management of large-scale sports events in the sports industry, he said that in the past three years, he has For the event operating agency, "it is indeed a difficult freezing period".
But the harder it freezes, the more cautious the recovery process will be. Therefore, he is more inclined to regard the holding of North Malaysia and Shanghai as "finding out and exploring the way for the fully open marathon market in the post-epidemic era."
"Under the conditions of how to prevent and control the epidemic, how to channel it more effectively, and ensure safety, we will do a normalized marathon event from a small number of people to a large number of people, from only local runners participating to national runners who can run at the same field. , we need standardized and mature operators such as North Malaysia and Shanghai to explore and summarize a set of effective marathon operation management methods that meet the requirements of epidemic prevention, which requires courage and courage,” Ren Junshen said, “Let us Everyone knows what can be done and what can’t be done, and that is what should be done now.”
Founded in 1981, North Malaysia is the longest-running and longest-running single-brand event in China. This year is the 40th event, but in the face of new challenges, the organizing committee has shown a low-key and pragmatic approach.
Before the competition, the official release was simplified and focused on providing information on competition services, with particular emphasis on epidemic prevention and control requirements.
"From the early verification of the number bib to the current face recognition, the difficulty and precision of event management have been significantly improved." Tian Tongsheng mentioned that on the day of the competition, the face recognition health information verification terminal set up in the entry area at the starting point, each time After the first identification, the contestants can see the negative nucleic acid test certificate, vaccination, body temperature, health code and other information within 24 hours. At the same time, a large number of volunteers are manually verifying the dynamic information of the itinerary code.
The reporter noticed that a group of well-equipped runners at the entrance were blocked from the track because they did not meet the requirements, and did not leave until the volunteers started to clean up the venue.
"How to scientifically formulate and strictly implement various epidemic prevention measures for the first restarted road race, and use new technologies and new means of epidemic prevention and control should be regarded as a process of exploration. It cannot be called a sample optimistically, nor should it be excessive. Lenovo." Tian Tongsheng said, "Excessive attention and overinterpretation will bring new pressure, just like overtraining, which will eventually lead to injury."
Will the marathon continue to be "hot"?
"Confidence is more valuable than gold in the development of an industry." In Zhang Qing's view, the scene of "old horses leading new recruits" on the North Horse Track can give a glimpse of the runners' inextinguishable enthusiasm, and this enthusiasm also gives road running industry practitioners It brings confidence, but in the context of the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, event operators should change their thinking as soon as possible, and polish refined event products to meet the needs of road runners in the region.
He believes that in the future, small-scale events with strong regionality may become a trend. "In fact, in countries with more developed road running, the event system is like a pyramid, and the local market base is very large. Generate cross-regional, differentiated individualized events, and China's road running market needs to consolidate this foundation."
But in the past three years, the road running industry has undergone a reshuffle. Do all stakeholders still have the energy to meet the needs of runners and continue the popularity of the marathon?
According to Wang Xueli, director of the Sports Industry Development Research Center of Tsinghua University, recovery is not only about regaining confidence, but also rebuilding strength. It is necessary to consider the possible learning curve in the future recovery process. Therefore, it is also necessary to give the road running industry a real "recovery". "time.
More importantly, unlike runners who can quickly gather, stakeholders still have the possibility to wait and see, especially road running events have strong brand symbols of cities and regions, whether local governments, as service purchasers, still have the will and sufficient economy Strength is involved.
Wang Xueli said that relatively speaking, the economically developed provinces with more active road running events may recover faster.
In addition, whether sponsors still have the resources and willingness to invest in road running events also needs to wait and see.
In this regard, Zhang Qing remains optimistic. "From the past results, some road running events have a good ability to attract money, and the sponsors who have already entered are not likely to give up easily." But he also noticed that in the future, the sponsors will be more interested in the event. Put forward higher requirements, "such as the combination of online and offline, the mode of online community operation."
In Zhang Qing's view, the lack of offline scenes in the past three years has instead left a group of practitioners with "love and methods" for the industry, whether they are exploring online competitions or building online road running communities, etc. "Everyone finally learned to embrace the Internet, but instead made up a lesson for the original event operator."
Ren Junshen doesn't think the "marathon fever" will end there.
As a witness, he said, "The marathon event has attracted significant attention since 2012. In 2016, the enthusiasm of ordinary people for sports was ignited, and then in 2019, the awakening of national fitness awareness has brought about a sharp increase in the number of sports people. The hot scene happens to be the carrier of a very eye-catching sports event, bringing a positive and benign guiding force." Therefore, although he has experienced three years of dormancy, he firmly believes that after nearly 10 years of marathon promotion and publicity , as well as the rapid development of my country's mobile Internet, the comprehensive popularization of intelligent sports facilities, and the rapid iteration of digital sports to date, which has accelerated the overall expansion of the sports crowd and the tidal process of rehabilitating the old and accepting the new, "I am still optimistic about the future of this industry, because The biggest feature of sports is 'movement', movement, flow, and touch."
Newspaper Beijing, November 7th
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Liang Xuan Source: China Youth Daily