Thursday, March 6, 2008

The 2008 Taipei County Jin Shi International Marathon which was established in 1979 and suspended from 1986 to 2001 before being transformed from “Jin Shan” to “Jin Shi” with its racing scale expanded, crossed through three townships including Wanli, Jinshan, and Shihmen was held last Sunday (March 2 in Taipei Time). Not only professional runners from Asian and European countries participated in this race, but several enterprises, governmental and academic teams also supported this race by participating in 6K Fun Run classes.

Even though the Central Weather Bureau warned of an impending dust storm, good weather graced this race with rain-free conditions. Another challenge for the runners in the 21K and 42K classes was cold winds due to the race route partially including coast line.

Finally, Belgian marathon runner Rik Ceulemans, men’s record holder of this race, extended his record with 2H18m13s to win the men’s championship, and Yu-fang Hsu, women’s champion of 2007 ING Taipei Marathon, won her title at women’s class with 2H53m39s. Coincidently, Wen-chien Wu and Wan-ling Wu, former champions of this race, all won the second place in their own gender class.

As a recap for the race, not only runners gave their best performances in this race, but several foreign teams — especially from Okinawa, Japan — played a great role adding a cultural exchange aspect to the event. Bros Sports, the race organizer, supervised by Taipei County Government in this race, some senior managers from Bros Sports hoped organizations from the sports industry could arrange the best integration of several marathon races in Taiwan in the future even though Bros Sports promoted a special attempt this year with three marathon races including Jin Shi, Dajia Mazu, and UMC Hsinchu stages.