XI'AN, April 20 (Xinhua) -- After finishing the 5km game of the Belt and Road Shaanxi Xi'an 2019 City Wall international marathon, Pakistani Abdul Rafeh and his compatriots held a short victory ceremony under the south gate of the City Wall.
5,000 runners from 28 countries and regions took part in this year's competition.
Nick Jones, 29, lived and worked in Chengdu, the capital city of Shaanxi's neighboring province Sichuan, finished the half marathon match with his girlfriend. The Englishman told Xinhua that he had been in Xi'an city once before while it was his debut in the unique game.
"The game is amazing and the city is beautiful. We visited the terracotta warriors in last June. But after finishing the competition, we may rest," Jones said.
Jones will leave for Chengdu on Sunday, but Abdul and his friends will stay here. "We are graduate students of the Northwestern Polytechnical University. And my specialty is the soft engineering," the 23-year-old said.
"You can see the foreigners and Chinese players competing and it's also good for their health. So I think it's a good event and such an event been organized," Abdul added.
Chinese runners proved to be unbeatable in all the events on their city wall, including half marathon, 13.7km race and 5km race. In men's half marathon, Wang Tao took the first place by 1:12:03. Ni Jie timed 1:23:19 and won the women event title. In the 13.7km race, Sangkyi Dongru overtook all the runners in 42 minutes and seven seconds, Tan Xiaoying claimed the gold medal in the women group in 53 minutes and three seconds.
The City Wall of Xi'an is an extension of the prior Tang dynasty structure. Its construction started in 1370 and completed in 1378. The rectangular construction is over four kilometers long from the east to west and about three kilometers long from the north to south. The total length is 13.7 kilometers. It is regarded as the most complete and the best preserved city wall all around the country.
Qiang Xiaoan, the deputy mayor of Xi'an, said that the foreign runners could registered through foreigners running platforms, besides the event's official website since 2019.
"We'd like to attract more international runners, making the competition become a big event all over the world," Qiang said.
