The “12-track” cross-country race kicked off on May 13 at the Chaye Walkway in Fengling Village, Zhongtai Sub-district Administration, uniting over 100 outdoor sports lovers from various sectors, including the village communities, enterprise unions, and the like.　　

Lao Lishi, 10-meter women’s synchronized diving gold medalist at Olympic Athens 2004, led the race. It embraces the Olympic motto of “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Faster, Higher, Stronger), igniting a passion for fitness across the community, and inviting all to share in the allure of Zhejiang as an outdoor sports haven and the vibrancy of Hangzhou as a burgeoning place of urban civility.

The Chaye Walkway bisecting Fengling, a village thronged with emerald tea farms, spans 3.7 kilometers across the mountaintop. The 20 race teams, each populated with five athletes, walked along the trails all in high spirit. They passed through over a thousand acres of tea-laden hills, beholding the exquisite, unspoiled emerald vistas of the tea plantations, and were enveloped in a sense of the enchantment the future tea village exudes.

The mountaintop also commands a great view over some new city landmarks, like the dawn-drenched Future Sci-tech City and Nanhu. 

The adventure was also punctuated with a host of entertaining activities, such as photo-op check-in, hoop tossing, and online medal collection, strategically placed to spark lively engagement among the participants. The athletes flocked to these points, participating and capturing moments as mementos of their involvement.

The “12-track” is actually an integrated race series on a dozen sporting tracks, each owned by a township of the district of Yuhang. This will be a year-long journey through the place’s all notable scenic views in different times, with one township and view for each month. Outdoor tracks are each orchestrated to align with the local landscape and season, now totaling 14 at 12 townships or subdistricts. Even more city walkways, nature trails, and cycling tracks, as ambassadors to Yuhang’s engaging nature views and cityscapes all year round, will be available in the future.