The annual winter long-distance race is one of XPU’s traditional sports and cultural activities. The race, which has played an active role in improving students’ physical fitness, honing strong will, and enlivening campus culture, has been held for more than forty consecutive times. Athletes started running on the South Around Road of Lintong Campus at 2:00 pm on December 4, 2020. More than 600 runners from 12 schools ran on the campus around road, showing the spirit of sports in the cold winter.

More than 2,000 people attended this activities, including the Secretary of XPU CPC Committee Ma Wangqing, Vice- Secretary of XPU CPC Committee Zhao Xiaofeng, Vice-Secretary of XPU Committee Zhu Junqiang, Vice-president Zhu Yongmin, Vice-president Dai Hong, heads of relevant departments, vice secretaries of CPC committees of each school, representatives of alumni, teachers and students of each unit. Vice President Dai Hong delivered an opening speech, Secretary of XPU CPC committee Ma Wanqing announced the start of the race, Xue Haihong, director of the Sports Department, presided over the event.

The race is divided into four groups: girls’ 2500 meters and 5000 meters, boys’ 5000 meters and 7000 meters. According to the chosen categories, athletes will run 1 lap, 2 laps or 3 laps along the school loop. Seeing the long-distance race background walls and podiums on the around road, people can involve in the racing atmosphere. The number of participants from each school had increased from more than 300 to more than 600, which showed the students’ high enthusiasm. The race adopted the form of road running, with the starting point and ending point in the loop, which was convenient for activity organization, inspection, timing and other tasks. It was the first time to use chip timing and network printing in a long-distance race, so that each participate had a record and certificate of running performance, which made the race more ritual, and the timing more accurate and fair. After cracking competition, School of Computer Science, Apparel and Art Design, New Media Art, Textile Science and Engineering, Science, and Urban Planning and Municipal Engineering won the top six groups. The top three athletes in each event were awarded on the spot. Zhu Junqiang, Vice-secretary of XPU CPC committee, and Dai Hong, vice president, presented awards to the winning groups.

The winter long-distance race is not only about speed and endurance, but also about faith and persistence. Since this race was in the “major snow” solar term, the temperature dropped sharply, but the athletes ‘perseverance, and never-giving up fighting spirit formed a beautiful landscape. The cold weather couldn't stop everyone’s passion, and the atmosphere was extremely overwhelming. With the joint efforts of teachers and students, the long-distance race was held as scheduled and ended successfully. In order to ensure the progress of the race, especially to ensure the safety of students in the race, the school established temporarily a race organizing committee with the vice president Dai Hong as the director and 8 working groups. What’s more, the school also formulated the competition rules, including rules of how to handle the accident safety and emergency, rules of preplanning which from organizing mobilization, registration, training, and physical examination before the game, to organizing group warm-ups on the day of the game, coordinating the order of the game, providing service guarantees and safety protection, etc. Relevant departments and all schools had pre-planned in advance to improve work initiative, and they started from the details to ensure the progress of the game.

Over the years, XPU has attached great importance to the all-round development of students, taking physical education classroom teaching and extracurricular sports activities as an important starting point, comprehensively improving the health of students, and actively organizing and carrying out various sports activities such as winter long-distance running games, spring games, and sunshine sports competitions, actively creating a strong sports atmosphere, and laying a good foundation for the healthy work, study and life of teachers and students.