SHINE | 15-May-2021 | By Li Qian
Under a scorching sun, 4,000 runners set off on Saturday morning from Daning Park for the 2021 Shanghai Jing’an Queens Half Marathon. The starting gun fired at 7am, and Chinese national record holder of the women’s half marathon Sun Yingjie, as a guest, took the lead. National team runner Zhang Xinyan was the first to complete the 21-kilometer half marathon, clocking 1 hour 13 minutes and 47 seconds.
It was 41 seconds slower than her last performance in the 2021 Shanghai Half Marathon in which she took the women’s crown. Last month, Zhang set the Chinese women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase record of 9 minutes and 20.32 seconds, which made her eligible for the Tokyo Olympics. Her teammate Li Zhixuan finished second in 1 hour, 17 minutes and 34 seconds, followed by Liu Meng at 1 hour, 19 minutes and 14 seconds. Li is the winner of the 2020 Shanghai Marathon with a personal best of 2 hour, 26 minutes and 15 seconds. Last month, she finished third in the 2021 Xuzhou Marathon at 2 hour, 29 minutes and 13 seconds. She’s also qualified to represent China at the Tokyo Olympics. The event started as a 10-kilometer mini marathon in Daning Park, but last year expanded to cover the entire Daning area with the half marathon.
Now the Shanghai leg of the Queen’s Run series, it awards runners who finish the half marathon within two hours access to any Queen’s Run station held this year in the Yangtze River Delta region, including Wuxi and Suzhou in Jiangsu Province. As the name suggests, most runners were women. However, their boyfriends and husbands were allowed to run with them. Besides the half marathon, a 5.2-kilometer fun race was also available. After the race, every female runner was presented with a rose. And they could enjoy free manicures at a pop-up nail salon. This year, the event was scaled down because of COVID-19 concerns, but services were improved. Eight water and seven medical stations were situated along the course, along with four ambulances. Cooling sponges were available every 5 kilometers, and three water sprays were helping runners beat the heat. The course included Daning’s iconic commercial complex IMIX Park, an eSports hub and film industry park on Lingshi Road, that houses hundreds of industry players.