One year ago in 2021, at this cross country racing, 21 people died due to extreme weather. It is a really sad news, as a jogger, I was shocked when I heard about it in the beginning, because I just could not imagine how bad the weather it was.
Actually it made sense, because I only have experience in Marathon/Half in city, haven’t had experience in Cross-Country at all.
Today, I saw another post who mentioned this sad story again, and people made a picture (showed in the feature image at top) to memorize these 21 people, to let people learn from it. There are some analyse after this event, why this could happen, they found people and town managers are encouraged to host Marathon, Cross Country Racing to improve their town influence and attract tourists, and it could help for the local economic development. But due to lack of experience and facilities, these racing condition may be very different, some of them are quite dangerous, to make the athletes to get hurt.
Anyway, this post reminded me a conversation between me and a guy from my workplace.
Me: There is one sad news I saw, some people dies in a racing due to bad weather, the people who gave up in the beginning, they were lucky to survive.
He: Oh, they should get a chicken T-shirt then.
Me: (Silence for a while)But the people died, is it more important to prove bravery or survive? And the organizers were supported to be cancelled the racing.
He: …… (changed to another topic)
I felt extremely shocked from his talk about the chicken T-shirt. Because I thought it should not judge the bravery when hearing this kind of news, but talking more about how to avoid this happen again, for example, the organizers should change the racing to another date, or send helicopters to follow all racers etc. Anyway, I left this company, and I hoped he would be more careful about his word in workplace.