When the country's epidemic prevention and control is normalized and the enthusiasm for national fitness rides the wave, road running, which was already exceptionally hot, has naturally become one of the most important channels for the public to re-engage in the embrace of sports.

In Shanghai, there is a running event at the beginning of each year at the F1 track, which is widely commented by runners.

"All the measures and settings may be inconvenient, but everything is for safety." On Jan. 1, 2021, the traditional Shanghai event Run The Track Steamer Run will soon fire the gun, and race director Wang Xiaofen told the surging news reporter that the cost of the event has increased and manpower consumption is greater, "but all the precautionary measures must be in accordance with the strictest standards."

This is the general environment of road running in China nowadays, whether it is the Shanghai Marathon such as the "platinum standard" level of top events, or like the steam on the run such as the "small and beautiful" events, do a good job of preventing epidemics and show the event of the "quality and human touch". "The key to winning the recognition of runners in the future will be the quality and human touch of the road running events.

Shanghai horse's successful experience, so that the event more confident

There is still a week to go before the first day of 2021, will be celebrating the "7 years old birthday" of the Steam on the Running custom to release the event information to the runners. In this year's push, the race organizers put race information and equipment pickup at the back of the list, and the first item at the top of the list was "Epidemic Prevention Guidelines".

When road races return this fall, epidemic preparedness is a top priority for all races.

"From the middle of this year when we were preparing the race program, we were thinking about epidemic prevention." Wang Xiaofen told the surging news reporter, the tournament's epidemic prevention program from September to November has changed several versions, according to Shanghai's epidemic prevention, the tournament has been and Jiading District Health Commission to coordinate, and finally determined to the highest epidemic prevention standards for the tournament layout and implementation.

This is also a microcosm of the epidemic prevention in domestic road running events this year.

Official epidemic prevention notice.

In late November, in this year's Shanghai Marathon, the world's only "platinum standard" event that allows the public to participate in the event before the gun was fired, the person in charge of the event and the surging news reporter confessed that "the event program has been revised several times, from the pre-game to the race after the design of the 14 response scenarios, in order to ensure the safety of the race. It is to ensure the safety of the race."

"We did also draw on the epidemic prevention program of Shangma, which is why when Shangma raised the level of epidemic prevention, we revised it again in November to raise the standard of epidemic prevention to the highest."

Wang Xiaofen cited several examples of the adjustments, such as requiring all runners and staff on the course to have a nucleic acid test report; setting up a "unique entrance" for packet pickup and race entry, and requiring identification; and adhering to the strictest standards for decontamination.

"The experience and success of Shangma has given us more confidence for the upcoming races."

Investment environment is not so good, but the epidemic prevention environment can not be bad

The more stringent epidemic prevention measures for the event, in fact, also means that the company running the race to increase investment in manpower and material resources.

"We all know that there is a problem with the overall environment for sports events this year - that the investment and business environment will not be particularly good." Wang Xiaofen did not explicitly mention the investment promotion situation of the event, but for road running events like the Steam Run, which was not a very large scale, to prevent and control the epidemic and reduce the scale of the event's influence and appeal has naturally been reduced.

"On the one hand, the income may be decreasing, but the investment in epidemic prevention we have instead increased a lot." Wang Xiaofen told the surging news reporter, this year's tournament in the budget specifically allocated a piece on the epidemic prevention, in order to ensure that the epidemic prevention measures are perfect.

"It's not just the increase in cost, but the workload of both staff and volunteers has doubled, but these are things that have to be done in order to ensure safety."

All the dedication and effort that Steamboat Run puts into epidemic prevention actually follows the principles that the China Association of Athletics Federations (CAAF) has been using to organize the marathon and road running events this year.

"The China Association of Athletics Federations to take a hierarchical classification, precise policy approach, for example, in the epidemic prevention and control of low-risk areas to gradually resume marathon activities, medium and high-risk areas are recommended not to carry out." In an interview with People's Daily, Shui Tao, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Athletics, said that in the process of gradually resuming marathon events, the standard of epidemic prevention and control cannot be lowered.

"According to the requirements for running the race and the overall situation, we require face recognition and identity information verification for all runners, which is responsible for everyone." Wang Xiaofen emphasized, "All people must be on our whitelist before they can enter the race course."

Optimizing the runner's experience in a strict epidemic prevention

Repeated temperature testing, face recognition and nucleic acid testing naturally increase the process for runners to participate in the race, while for a slightly smaller event like the Steam Race, which is not a very long race, they have to ensure the quality of the epidemic prevention and improve the quality of the race.

That's why the organizers of the Steamboat Race are offering 1,000 free nucleic acid tests to some 6,000 runners.

In Wang Xiaofen's words, "We want to minimize the cost of participation for everyone, and it's kind of a New Year's benefit for everyone. But there are still a lot of shortcomings, and we failed to secure free nucleic acid tests for all runners."

In fact, this is not the only event that offers free nucleic acid tests to runners like the Steam Run -- the organizers of the Ningbo Dongqianhu Marathon in early December also offered free nucleic acid tests to 4,000 runners.

How to ensure the quality of road running services in the strict epidemic prevention of the event will be an important part of all the races that need to be thought about and continuously improved in the coming long time.

Besides the free nucleic acid test quota, Steamer Run is also trying to provide more services - that is, allowing a certain number of spectating family and friends groups to enter the race course to increase the incentive for runners to participate.

"After all, there's another difference between this race and other races, and that's that it's the first running race of the new year, and everyone definitely wants to share this moment with their families."

Wang has seen the race grow a little bit in size at the Shanghai International Circuit over the past few years - last year, nearly 10,000 runners took to the F1 track, and the spectator stand on the sidelines welcomed close to 4,000 friends and relatives, making for a pretty enthusiastic scene and atmosphere.

This year, due to the outbreak of the epidemic, race organizers were only able to secure about 200 places, and cheering friends and family were similarly required to have a nucleic acid test report to enter the race.

"We're still hoping to continue this rather wonderful tradition, and of course to add to the runner's experience."