Some 20,000 people participated in a 10km road run in Taipei yesterday — the first leg of the Human Race, a global running event touted as the largest of its kind in the world.
A host of professional runners, athletes from the Taiwanese Olympic team and professional basketball players joined President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and officials from the Sports Affairs Council to hit the road at 6am for the race.
The runners began at Taipei City Hall and completed the race at the Dajia Riverside Park in Dazhi District (大直).
Wu Wen-chien (吳文騫), 31, who represented Taiwan in the men’s marathon competition at the Beijing Olympics, won the men’s division in yesterday’s race by finishing with a time of 30 minutes and 35 seconds.
Hsu Yu-fang (許玉芳), 26, a marathoner who participated in the 2004 Athens Olympics, won the women’s division with a time of 36:06.
The run, sponsored by global sportswear giant Nike, will move from Taipei to Shanghai, London, Paris, New York and 20 other “race cities” around the world.
The 25 cities were selected based on the geographical locations seen as best suited to showcase some of the most famous landmarks and unique race courses in the world. The cities must also be deemed capable of hosting a large number of runners.
The other 20 cities are Austin Texas, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Chicago, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Lima, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City, Munich, Quito, Rome, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Vancouver and Warsaw.
At the end of the race in Taipei, a live concert was held at the Dajia Riverside Park to fete the runners and their sport.
Meanwhile, the head office of Nike donated US$1 million to www.ninemillion.org, a UN refugee agency campaign that provides help for refugee children and other public interest organizations.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS