The Race Where the Fastest Runners Died

On 22 May 2021, 172 runners started a 100 km mountain race in Gansu, China. 21 never came back – and almost all of them were near the front. This video reconstructs the race on a real elevation model, with hourly weather reanalysis data, to show why the fastest runners were in the worst possible place when the cold front hit. Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:25 The race and the terrain 1:48 The night before 2:32 The start 3:07 The cold front arrives 5:58 Why the fastest 7:11 Rescue 8:16 Aftermath 8:43 What this means for your next tour Data Terrain: SRTM via AWS Terrain Tiles (~30 m) Weather: ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus/ECMWF) via Open-Meteo, grid point 37.01° N 104.25° E – a 25 km model cell, not a station on the ridge Course: organiser's course map, georeferenced to the elevation model (accuracy ≈ 75 m) Basemap: Natural Earth Sources Wikipedia – Gansu ultramarathon disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gansu_u... South China Morning Post: https://www.scmp.com/sport/outdoor/tr... Caixin Global – How I survived the deadly ultramarathon in Gansu: https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-05-... Men's Journal – Death in the Stone Forest iRunFar – reporting incl. Zhang Xiaotao and the runner at km 31 Gansu provincial investigation report, June 2021 No footage, no photos of victims. Out of respect, the people who died are not named. This is Fall Line.