A Brief History
On May 22, 2021, what may be the saddest and most bizarre event to strike an athletic competition in progress occurred in Gansu, China. An ultra-marathon held in the Yellow River Stone Forest was the final race for 21 of the 172 long distance runners competing in the 100 km race.
Digging Deeper
During the race, the weather had turned cold, rain and possibly graupel, a form of frozen rain, pelted the hapless runners as temperatures dipped from an “apparent” 34 degrees Fahrenheit to about 23 degrees Fahrenheit in wind gusts between 47 and 55 miles per hour.
Running so far in rain whipped by such a stiff wind is difficult but coupled with the cold the runners lost too much body heat and 21 of the competitors died of hypothermia after collapsing at a check point. Rescue personnel did not arrive for several hours, although oddly enough, it was the slow runners that survived!
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Jaekl, Phil. Out Cold: A Chilling Descent into the Macabre, Controversial, Lifesaving History of Hypothermia. PublicAffairs , 2021.
Nash, Samuel. The Ultra Marathon Bible: Your #1 Beginner’s Training Guide to Prepare, Run, and Survive Your First 50k to 100 Mile. Independently published , 2022.
The featured image in this article, a map by Tomchen1989, NordNordWest, TUBS, and GreatHan, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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