Text丨Financial gossip female author: My hometown
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In recent years, the marathon has become the most popular sport for the middle class, and at its peak in 2019, there were more than 1,800 events across the country, and this year's race has also resumed the trend of explosion.
There are several colleagues in the office of the eighth sister who run marathons, some can only sign up for a half-marathon to play, and some can run into 330 in the whole marathon.
And last weekend's Beijing Half Marathon suddenly swiped the screen on the Internet and blew up.
The reason was the Beijing Half Marathon last weekend, in which 20,000 runners participated, and the first place was won by the Chinese elite He Jie.
The controversy is that at the moment of winning the championship, three foreign players waved behind He Jie, which made many people feel that this was not directly ceding the ranking to He Jie?
This incident has caused widespread discussion, some people say that it is a fake match, and some people say that the African brothers are carrying a sedan chair.
In fact, He Jie, as a top marathon runner, ran a good time of 2 hours, 6 minutes and 57 seconds in the Wuxi Marathon not long ago, which was the first among Chinese runners, breaking the 16-year-old Chinese marathon men's record and bringing the Chinese marathon into the "206 era".
And today, there is a new reversal in this matter:
Several African brothers were originally He Jie's "rabbits", and they came to the competition to help He Jie break the record.
So here's the interesting thing, what is this "rabbit"?
1.
/ Why are there pacemakers in a marathon? /
In many marathons, there is a position called a pacemaker, commonly known as a "rabbit".
In fact, it is very common for athletes to let "rabbits" lead themselves in marathon events, mainly for two purposes:
The first effect is to reduce wind resistance in front of the athletes, and Kipchoge, the marathon world record holder, invited 41 top runners to lead in front of him in the "Horse of the Century", which broke the second in 2019, as the most luxurious rabbit group, according to a fixed formation:
With five men in front and two people in the back, this formation was designed to minimize Kipchoge's drag (about 85%), and won a record of 1 hour, 59 minutes and 49 seconds.
The second role of the "rabbit" is to control the speed and maintain the pace.
Among novice and amateur runners, there are often people who "hit the wall" accidents, some of which are due to the unstable speed during the race, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, or the acceleration early, there will be physiological discomfort symptoms, if someone is running, maintaining an even planned pace is more conducive to improving performance.
Kipchoge's aforementioned two-horse break, with a rabbit group leading the way, and a 250 constant speed pace car with a laser marking lines on the track, with the cooperation of these means, he ran a number of very stable 250 paces, and finally won the "human record".
2.
/ "Rabbits" are common in marathons /
Actually, Kipchoge is not the only one who will invite "rabbits". In the marathon, "rabbits" can be seen everywhere, both "official rabbits" and "private rabbits".
The so-called official rabbit is the organizer in the pre-race open recruitment screening of high-level runners, can control the whole running rhythm, to participate in the event of amateur runners to provide pace reference and running benchmark, generally is 15 minutes in gear, if in the whole marathon, the fastest official rabbit is mostly 300 pace, that is, 3 hours to finish, the slowest is usually the closing time, 6 hours or 6 and a half hours.
The official rabbit has a uniform costume and logo, red or pink and other eye-catching solid color T-shirts, some will wear rabbit ears or horns and other eye-catching headdresses, in areas where the wind is not strong, will tie a few balloons to the official rabbit, printed with the official rabbit corresponding to the finish time, runners can see from a distance, can choose to follow.
Rookie contestants whose speed and form are not so stable, can choose to follow the slow rabbit or the closed rabbit. In the actual game, the slow rabbit is equipped with more than one person, the logo is obvious and followed by a large group of people, and you can move forward at a uniform speed to maximize physical strength, which is very helpful for the game.
If high-level contestants want to enter 330 or break three, they will often follow the fast rabbit and professional rabbit first, reduce wind resistance and save physical strength, and adjust the fast full speed to save it, and at the last moment you need to increase your speed and get your satisfactory results.
However, even the official rabbits, like the runners, need to abide by the rules of the race and run with the athletes, but they have to make a "pace" mark on their bodies.
The above is the official rabbit, so what about the private rabbit, also known as the hare, is generally found by the runner himself.
This is more popular in the running group, where runners with a high pace bring runners with a lower pace, or directly lead a team of people to say a pace in advance, so that everyone can improve their results, and sometimes there are also cases where male runners lead female runners to break new records.
There was a rumor in the Shanghai Marathon, saying that there was a local tyrant big brother, in order to "break three" spent a lot of money to invite 8 240 masters to break the wind and lead him, and one person gave 5000, but unfortunately the weather was too hot, and finally ran 313, but still failed to break three.
It can only be said that being rich is capricious.
3.
/ Public opinion storm about "rabbit" /
The three African athletes who crossed the line with He Jie in the North Half Marathon this time are He Jie's "rabbits".
Before the North Half Marathon, He Jie and Liu Min (the last women's champion) also ran and trained together on the streets of Beijing:
And during the race, some real-time reports also mentioned the identity of the pacemaker:
In the process of crossing the line, since it is He Jie's private rabbit, many of the African brothers' leading and guiding actions can be explained. In the final analysis, they hope to help He Jie break the men's half marathon record in one fell swoop.
However, not long after He Jie finished the Wuxi Marathon, he hurriedly participated in the northern half marathon, and his condition was relatively poor, and he failed to break the record, but caused an uproar because of the "rabbit".
▲In the photo, He Jie is helping Yang Shaohui forward
At present, the northern half of the marathon is under investigation, what do you think about the "rabbit" in the marathon?