The 100-mile cross-country race was caught in a thunderstorm, and 49 runners were trapped in a temple without a mobile phone signal in the early morning, and did not receive the news that the event had been fused. Ge Haibiao, general manager of Ningbo Jiangnan 100 Sports Culture Co., Ltd., told The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) on April 17 that by 13 o'clock on the day of the incident, all participants had returned to the main venue safely, and the organizing committee would continue to improve its work, optimize the route and track design, change the two wading sections into ridgelines, check communication tools, try not to lag in information, and strengthen rescue and response capabilities, so as to bring a better experience to participants under the premise of ensuring safety.
Players trapped by heavy rain.
The 2024 Xuedou Mountain Jiangnan 100-mile cross-country race is one of the "Jiangnan 100 series", the event has been held since 2015, this year's 100-mile cross-country race will be held in Fenghua District, Ningbo from April 13 to 15, with five groups of 168, 110, 85, 60 and 35 kilometers, of which there are 737 runners in the 168 km group, with a total of 167.2 kilometers and a cumulative climb of 7600 meters, passing through 40 villages and 37 peaks, and closing in 48 hours. On the 14th, the organizing committee announced that due to thundershowers, accompanied by strong thunder and lightning activities and heavy to heavy rain, in order to ensure safety, it was decided to activate the event emergency plan and terminate the event, and the participants in the 168 and 110 km groups will finish the race by default and be issued a finishing bag, and the runners who have withdrawn from the race and left the race will be arranged to be mailed.
On April 15th and 16th, some contestants posted articles on the Internet "We waited for the news of the circuit breaker of the race after 7 hours of "lost contact"" and the video of "49 people trapped and lost contact for 7 hours in the Jiangnan 100-mile race", both mentioning that 49 participants in the 168-kilometer group were trapped in the temple in the early morning of the 14th due to thunderstorms, lost contact with the organizing committee, and were rescued that morning.
Ge Haibiao said that he understands the feelings of the participants trapped in Fulong Temple, and expresses his deep apologies for the bad experience caused to the participants, and the organizing committee will face all the problems in the event and continue to improve. On the evening of the 17th, the official WeChat public account of the series published a letter to 2,908 Jiangnan 100-mile contestants, saying that it is a pity that the event was suspended due to weather conditions, and in order to repay trust and support, each player will be sent 2 free tickets to Fenghua Xikou 5A Scenic Area with a validity period of one year.
Tie Mu (not his real name) and Liao Hongtao are both runners in the 168km race, from Yunnan and Guangzhou, respectively.
"At around 2:17 on the 14th, I had passed the CP6 (checkpoint), and it began to rain when I climbed the Sanjian Mountain in the 'Four Bright and Seven Peaks', and the section of the mountain that could only be reached by rope was especially difficult in a slippery environment, and when I reached the top of the mountain at 2:38, it began to rain heavily, thunder and lightning. Tiemu told The Paper that when he reached the top of the mountain, he saw that there were still thirty or forty people behind him, and advised everyone to go back quickly, and in the end, only two contestants continued to move forward. "The descent is a 60-degree angle – you have to sit on the slope and slide down, and many people wear out their pants and some girls fall as soon as they stand up. Tiemu said that when he arrived at the foot of the mountain at about 3 o'clock, the road in front of him was close to the "river", and he was soaking wet, and his bag was full of water, and he was very worried about flash floods or mudslides.
After walking for about an hour at the foot of the mountain, Teki noticed that there were lights on the side of the road, and when he got closer, he found that it was a temple called "Fulong Temple".
Trapped players.
"It was 3:55 a.m., and I saw more than 20 people sitting on the floor in the temple, wrapped in thermal blankets. "Many people in the temple didn't bring other clothes, and one person was so wet and frozen that I gave him another thermal blanket."
Liao Hongtao arrived at Fulong Temple half an hour earlier than Tiemu, and there were already more than ten contestants in the temple. He said that there were contestants who went to the temple around 2 o'clock, and some people who arrived at 5 o'clock, and finally counted a total of 49 people.
"At first, everyone was looking forward to the rain being lighter and going to CP7, but from Fulong Temple to CP7, we had to climb a mountain, and there was thunder and lightning outside, and the torrential rain kept going, so we had to give up. Liao Hongtao told The Paper that there was no signal in the place where the temple was located, and it was impossible to contact the organizing committee and family members with a mobile phone, so he decided to press the "SOS" button of the GPS alarm system configured by the organizing committee, "Dozens of people pressed from more than 3 o'clock to more than 6 o'clock, and there was no response."
He said that before the race, the organizing committee emphasized that all players must turn on the GPS to facilitate the backstage monitoring of the position, and said that it was "a matter of everyone's life". "The organizing committee said that GPS has two functions, one is to call to remind the contestants if they find that they are going the wrong way, and the other is to judge whether they are in danger according to their location if they stay in the same position for a long time. ”
"My biggest fear at the temple was being stuck here, without food supplies, in case someone had hypothermia, it would be troublesome, and if there were still contestants on the hill at that time, it might be dangerous. Tiemu said.
At six o'clock on the 14th, the rain gradually became lighter, and some villagers passed by Fulong Temple, and the contestants inquired and learned that there was a mountain with a better signal in the distance. "A runner borrowed a villager's mobile phone to call the organizing committee, and the staff of the organizing committee came to see us at around 7 o'clock, asked us to wait for the arrangement, and came to inform us to get on the bus at 9 o'clock. Liao Hongtao said, "At about 10 o'clock, we got on the two buses of the organizing committee, and at this time, the mobile phone also received a text message from the organizing committee about the circuit breaker of the game at more than 6 o'clock. ”
Liao Hongtao has 12 years of marathon "running age" and 8 years of cross-country "running age", participated in 20 or 30 races at home and abroad, and also participated in the Jiangnan 100 series of events. "I still think that 'Gangnam 100' is very good, this time the track is very beautiful, the road is full of cherry blossoms, the CP orders are rich in food, and the volunteers are very enthusiastic. "What would happen if we didn't come across a temple where we could shelter from the rain and if we didn't come across a hill with a good signal to make a phone call?" ”
Ge Haibiao, the director of the competition, said that the organizing committee has made sufficient preparations for the event. From April 7th, the weather forecast and related precautions for each township in the competition area during the competition period will be released daily, and the weather forecast for each CP point every 3 hours from 20 o'clock on the same day to 20 o'clock the next day will be released on the 13th. There are 20 CP points in the competition, equipped with 2 large first-aid stations, and the other 18 have medical personnel; all players are forced to wear (compulsory equipment), carry mobile phones, spare batteries, headlamps, jackets, thermal underwear, thermal blankets, etc., and also make emergency plans, but there may be a certain gap between the weather information based on the decision-making and the weather conditions actually felt by the participants. "We have been monitoring the rainfall, and although the weather forecast has always shown moderate rain near Sanjianshan, we also anticipated that the rainfall could be heavier, so we made several decisions step by step. ”
Some of the text messages sent by the organizing committee.
The screenshot of the text message provided by him shows that the organizing committee sent a text message to all players at 5:16 on the 14th, saying that players entering the supply station are prohibited from leaving the station, and the exit time will be notified by the organizing committee, and according to the weather forecast, the meteorological conditions will gradually improve after 8 o'clock. At 6:25, a text message was sent saying that the circuit breaker would be carried out on Dong Jiayan and Tanhu Ancient Village, and the players at the point were requested to obey the command of the on-site staff, and the organizing committee would arrange vehicle pick-up. At 6:26, a text message was sent saying that the organizing committee had decided to suspend the event and had arranged transportation capacity to connect the players at each CP point. A text message was sent at 8:12 to terminate the event.
"The participants must have experienced the rainstorm more personally on the spot, and the weather information we got was relatively lagging behind. Ge Haibiao said that the rescue team also received a distress message from three participants with a fever in the early morning, and prioritized the transfer of these three contestants, which also caused a slow response to the 49 trapped contestants.
According to Ge Haibiao, Fulong Temple is located at the lowest point of the CP6 Siming Track to the lowest point of the CP7 Dong Jiayan Track, with an altitude of 465 meters. "The GPS signal in the valley is not sensitive enough, and the command center has not been able to receive the contestants' help information in time, and the follow-up will strengthen the inspection and improvement of GPS equipment. "We also found that some players have GPS wrapped in thermal blankets, which can also cause signal blockages, and we will remind everyone to pay attention to this problem in later games." ”
Source: The Paper