At 9 a.m. on May 22, the 2021 (4th) Yellow River Stone Forest Mountain Marathon 100km Cross Country Race held by Jingtai County, Baiyin City, Gansu Province was held in the Yellow River Stone Forest scenic area. A total of nearly 10,000 people participated in the race, including 172 participants in the 100-kilometer cross-country race.
At about 13:00 on the same day, 100 km cross-country race high altitude section 20 km to 31 km, by the sudden change of extreme weather, local hail, freezing rain, wind catastrophic weather, the temperature plummeted, the participants appeared unwell, loss of temperature and other conditions, some participants lost, the race stopped, the local search and rescue of the lost.
According to the search and rescue situation announced by the organizer, as of 8 a.m. on May 3, a total of 151 participants were rescued and retrieved, of whom 8 were treated in hospital for minor injuries and 21 participants had lost their vital signs when they were found.
As a former investigative journalist, he participated in the race with many friends. In case of bad weather, he tried his best to persevere, but eventually felt that something was wrong and withdrew in time to save his life. But unfortunately, he had several other friends killed or lost. “After he went back to the south, he wrote an article carefully telling about his own experience.
Extreme weather, the organizers did not warn
The Yellow River Stone Forest 100 km cross-country race, the race place in Gansu Province, Baiyin City, Jingtai County, the Yellow River Stone Forest Scenic Area, can be roughly understood as a scenic area in order to promote themselves and organized a tournament, the organizers are the CPC Baiyin Municipal Committee, Baiyin City People’s Government, the contractor is the Baiyin Sports Bureau, the CPC Jingtai County Committee, Jingtai County People’s Government, the implementation unit is the Yellow River Stone Forest Scenic Area Management Committee, Gansu Shengjing Sports Culture Ltd.
This competition has been held four times. The first few sessions, the event organization is average, but the completion of the race will be issued 1600 yuan subsidy, so that the players still tend to rush. After all, in addition to 1,000 yuan registration fee, finish the race can net 600 yuan, the general geographic area of the runner’s participation costs basically covered.
Yellow River stone forest 100 km cross-country race track, some people say is the most simple 100 km cross-country race, this is probably based on two points, one is the overall climb is not big, about 3000 meters within the cumulative climb, and other 100 km cross-country race compared to really low; second is the track difficulty is low, belong to the basic can run up the high-speed track.
But in my opinion, it is not a simple 100 km, is also based on two points, one is the track elevation is not low, the overall in the upper and lower 2000 altitude, for the plain life of the runners, this is considered high altitude and out of the scenic area after the track is mostly in no man’s land; second is the threshold, closing time of 20 hours, which basically means that, keen on the Netflix event running scum white people is no way to register, this part of the people 20 The possibility of finishing the race in 20 hours is not great.
This year’s race, the race company has not changed, but the 21st night technical meeting, found that the race director explaining the track changed, some of the organizing committee staff are also new faces.
As mentioned above, the local involvement in the race is very deep, of course, this and the organization of the race is not very good relationship, and not official participation is high, the event must be a good event, this, there are race experience friends understand.
The yellow river stone forest this race, even if the event organization does not reach one hundred percent of the standard, a few sessions down, but also considered a mature event, the track has not changed for several years. The first half of the closing time is set to be harsh because of the unfinished runners and caused by the trolling, that the organizing committee is deliberately so, to close part of the players to achieve the purpose of saving money. After all, shutting down 10 people would cost 16,000 less.
However, this year, some details are visible to the naked eye, such as track markings, feeling the Yellow River Rock Forest this race slot has become less, the organization is more delicate. But it was this year’s race that went wrong, and it was a big problem.
The problem was the weather. The extreme weather organizing committee did not warn.
Even the weather forecast for the day of May 21, did not forecast out the next day of this extreme weather.
Withdraw in time after losing consciousness in ten fingers
On May 22, the morning of the race day, the wind and sunshine were very good, and there was even a hint of warmth before taking the ferry to the start.
The moment I got off the ferry, the sky turned cloudy, and then the wind picked up, with four or five levels of wind. The body temperature instantly decreased, to participate in the 100 km cross-country race, I ran two kilometers to warm up before shooting, this is never happened, more trouble is, after running these two kilometers, the body also did not warm up.
At the end of May, it was already summer in Silver, and based on the experience of the previous editions, the rash vest was not included in the mandatory equipment, but was written into the race manual as recommended equipment. No one objected to this, and my jacket was packed into a transit bag and stored at the CP6 change point 62km into the course, where I would normally arrive before dark.
Oh, and another thing is that the organizing committee collected the bags the night before the race, so if it was the morning of the race, many people would have been wearing their jerseys.
This competition because of the high prize money for the top ten, even if you can’t get the ranking prize, there are still 1600 yuan subsidy pockets, so the proportion of masters participating every year is not low. The race began, many of the gods are wearing short-sleeved shorts, waiting for the start of the shivering, the gun went off, the arrow rushed out.
The start of the race is a few kilometers of steep downhill hills, we all want to use the downhill quickly let the body warm up, at least I think so.
The problem is, 9 o’clock the whole race began, the wind has increased, this long downhill, I do not know how many people hat directly blown away, and stop back to pick up the hat.
From the start to CP1, this section is basically running in the scenic area, running in the seam of the stone forest, the tall stone forest blocked the wind. After CP1, it was a flat Gobi, but most of the course was downwind before CP2, which was fine.
Before I got to CP2, it started to rain, from sporadic to a little more dense than sporadic. It was around 10:30 at this point.
After CP2, that’s when the real trouble came.
The first is the headwind, the wind has increased to seven or eight levels, the rain is more dense, the wind wrapped in rain to the face, like a dense bullet hit, really hurt. Glasses were glued by the rain, eyes in the strong wind and dense rain can not open, only squinting slits, vision was seriously affected.
The original Yellow River Rock Forest track, the most difficult part in this section, from CP2 to CP3, 8 km distance, climbing 1000 meters, and only climbing without descending. The mountain is a mixture of rocks and sandy soil, and many sections are very steep.
In previous races, this section was extremely difficult, and the runners needed to climb up on their hands and knees, which was not accessible by motorcycle. We still have to hold on to CP4.
But on the day of May 22, the problem was magnified, the higher the climb, the stronger the wind, the rain, the lower the temperature, and the lower the body temperature.
As I was climbing up, I saw the first runner who went down from the top, saying that it was too cold up there and he couldn’t stand it and withdrew from the race. The first time I was thinking what: just give up the 1,600? Later, every time I thought about it, I wanted to smoke myself.
Continuing to climb up, a few more runners came down one after another. Including a very big God player.
And my situation, getting worse and worse. The whole body has been wet, including shoes and socks all wet, the wind can not stand, very worried about being blown down, the cold more and more unbearable, looking for a relatively sheltered place to pull out the insulation blanket, wrapped in the body, instantly blown away by the wind, nothing useful. There is also the player’s insulation blanket, directly by the wind to tear up.
I wore a pair of fingerless gloves and used a trekking pole, my hands were freezing and I couldn’t stand it, so I put the pole under my armpit and slowly walked up the mountain.
Soon, I found that I couldn’t feel all ten fingers, which had never happened except in the winter in the northeast. Putting my fingers in my mouth, I felt that I had been holding them for a long time, but I still couldn’t feel my fingers, and my tongue was cold at the same time.
At this moment, I decided to withdraw from the race and go down the mountain.
Since I was going down the mountain, I definitely wanted to go down as soon as possible and return to a warm place as soon as possible, but it was impossible.
It was easy to go up and hard to go down, especially on this very steep terrain. The rocks are slippery, the vision is blurred, and the body, too, is starting to shiver involuntarily, shaking so much that there is no way to stop that kind.
One small step to move down, and I think there has been a feeling of confusion, the more shaking, the stronger this feeling of confusion, I only have a belief, must insist to the bottom of the mountain, even if you want to fall, also want to fall at the bottom of the mountain.
I think I was lucky to make a decision in time at the last moment. At the moment I made the decision, I was on the verge of losing my temperature, at the critical point, between the milliseconds, and by the time I got off the mountain, I was already experiencing the symptoms of loss of temperature.
In this way, if I did not withdraw in time, the next may be in my unsuspecting situation, suddenly collapsed.
Loss of temperature, it’s terrible. It was a day of extreme weather in the most difficult stage of the race where the runners lost temperature on a large scale.
Friends lost connection while brushing the message while weeping
I withdrew to the mountainside, blue sky rescue team personnel guided to a small hut, the house has been about ten first withdrawn players down. In the hut waiting for rescue for more than an hour, the number of players in the hut has reached close to fifty people.
When I went down the mountain, I didn’t see anyone lying unconscious on the mountain, and there was a large group of runners going up the mountain when I went down. The news brought back by the runners who withdrew to the hut was that they saw a number of runners lying motionless on the roadside, foaming at the mouth (all running groups already had videos), and one runner said that there was an elderly runner in his sixties who was “already dead” and begged the Blue Sky rescue team members to go up as soon as possible. The good news is that when he was helped in, his lips were red and he should be fine. And in the face of the players said the other players on the mountain, this point only a few blue sky rescue team members can not help, has been using the walkie-talkie and the organizing committee to contact.
This section, the race is difficult, rescue more difficult.
Withdrawal of the players said, see the people lying on the side of the road, there is no way to help them, they can not protect themselves. When they said this, their eyes were red. And I, thinking of my own downhill when that situation, empathize.
More than an hour later, a rescuer came up from the bottom of the mountain and said to the evacuees in the hut that the car could not drive to this position, those who could move, returned to CP2 to take the car back to the end, those who could not move, had to continue to wait for the rescue to come up.
I descended with a group of people who had already slowed down and returned to CP2. 20 people got into a Chinese bus and we, the first group of runners, became the first runners who safely withdrew to the finish line. It was probably less than 16:00 when we returned to the finish line of the race, which is located in the scenic area.
On the way back, some people were shedding tears while painting the race group.
When I got back to the hotel, I kept swiping the runners’ positions and messages from the race group, and by this moment, it was midnight.
In the afternoon, everyone was thinking about getting the players down before it got dark.
There is a lot of hearsay, unverifiable and unconfirmed information, which will not be discussed in this article. To list some of the facts that we know –
A number of runners fell and bled, with varying degrees of injury.
There were several runners stranded on the mountain in various conditions. There were those who lost their temperature, those who lost their temperature leading to more serious conditions, those who found a corner of a slightly sheltered place to keep warm and wait for rescue, and those who had the super power of one or two people who kept moving on the course until after nightfall.
Many of the country’s top cross-country runners basically all withdrew from the race, the GPS position has not moved for several hours, and some people have no signal on the phone, can not get in touch.
There was also the fact that a friend of mine, a girl, who is very close to me, lost her temperature near the top of the mountain. She told me that she lost her temperature, sat down, and was later woken up by another female runner, after which she found that she had broken her leg and was bleeding, but she had no recollection of how she broke her leg. It means she lost consciousness during that time, I told her: you have to thank the young lady who woke you up, you may almost lose your person today ……
At the end of the article, “stray south” said, in the future to participate in similar high-altitude competition, one is to bring enough life-saving equipment, the second is to be able to do in normal times to correctly perceive their own physical condition, the third is to face the unexpected situation in the game, timely and decisive decisions.
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