Part 1 of this piece, a rundown of a track and field meet in a Chinese university, can be read here. It ended with the writer noticing more people out for a run at his campus’s outdoor stadium:
…I liked the athletic company, though there were nearly always as many walkers as runners, and some of the runners looked pretty grim about the whole thing. On the day of the meet, I saw why their training looked so dour. They weren’t exactly staring death in the face, but perhaps they couldn’t help but notice his pimply younger brother.
My feelings careened all over the emotional map during the women’s 3000-metre race. It was glorious, pathetic, dramatic, and a complete mess. (So was I, by the end.) Contrary to all the rules of track competition, many of the schools had conscripted a young man to run alongside their female entrant, while others had a relay team taking one or two hundred-metre turns urging the runners on and charging pell-mell across the infield. Some of the go-go girls carried water bottles, and would fling handfuls at the faces of their favourite athlete on this warm day. Some competitors plodded drearily, hands on exhausted hips. There were two heats of this spectacular struggle session, so as the lead runner was heading for the home stretch, she lengthened her stride trying to achieve a winning time. A dozen young men ran with her, just inside the infield, occasionally barrelling over a race marshal or spectator. Her desperate effort across the last hundred metres had me choked with admiring emotion. The glory of sport! Even here! What a noble effort! But as I moved closer to the finish line, I saw a growing collection of young women, dazed and prone, or in a couple of photogenic cases (but sorry, no photo!) a limp body being carried in the arms of a young Galahad towards a patch of shade. Anxious teams of friends and first-aid volunteers (with no training) fanned and flung water in a flurry of urgent and useless ministrations to fallen warriors. That’s when I started to get angry.