Ultramarathon China's tragedy and the survivors threatened for speaking out
Zhang's frozen unconscious body had been found by a passing shepherd who'd wrapped him in a quilt and carried him over his shoulders to safety. He was one of the lucky ones.
In May this year, 21 competitors died at an ultra-running event in northern China hit by extreme weather conditions: hail, heavy rain and intense gales caused temperatures to plummet, and nobody seemed prepared for it.
Only a small number felt comfortable talking about what happened - and some have been threatened for doing so.
On race day in Baiyin, a former mining area in China's Gansu province, the sun was out. Some 172 athletes were ready to run 62 miles (100km) through the Yellow River Stone Forest national park.
The organisers were expecting good conditions - they'd had mild weather the previous three years. They had even arranged for some of the competitors' cold-weather gear to be moved forward along the course so they could pick it up later in the day.
But soon after Zhang arrived at the start line, a cold wind began to blow. Some runners gathered in a nearby gift shop to take shelter, many of them shivering in their short-sleeved tops and shorts.
Zhang started the race well. He was among the quickest to reach the first checkpoint, making the rugged mountain trails light work... Things began to go badly wrong just before the second checkpoint, some 20km into the course.
"I was halfway up the mountain when the hail started to fall," he later wrote in a post on Chinese social media. "My face was pummelled by ice, and my vision was blurred, making it difficult to see the path."
Still, Zhang went on. He overtook Huang Guanjun, the men's hard of hearing marathon winner at China's 2019 National Paralympic Games, who was struggling badly. He went across to another runner, Wu Panrong, with whom he'd been keeping pace since the start.
Wu was shaking, and his voice was trembling as he spoke. Zhang put his arm around him, and the pair continued together, but quickly the wind became so strong and the ground so slippery that they were forced to separate.
As Zhang continued to ascend, he was overpowered by the wind, with gusts reaching up to 55mph. He'd forced himself up from the ground many times, but now because of the cold, he began to lose control of his limbs. The temperature felt like -5C. This time when he fell, he couldn't get back up.
Thinking fast, Zhang covered himself with an insulation blanket. He took out his GPS tracker, pressed the SOS button, and passed out.
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