Death Drive: Racing Thrill instal12/24/2023 Ying’s company provided salmon for the athletes to eat, prize money of up to 15,000 yuan, and presented the male 100km winner with his body weight in salmon as an additional reward. But the Super-Salmon trail race, in its first official year, brought in just over 500 runners, filling the town’s lone hotel for 300 yuan per night, with some guests staying for a few days after the event. Officials in Longyangxia declined to be interviewed. Ultramarathons, which are many times longer than the traditional 42.2-kilometre marathon, are usually “trail” runs, sending racers across countryside terrain. Longyangxia, a sleepy waterfront town of about 3,000 people, has in the last decade poured more than 1.6 billion yuan ($233 million), much of it from private investment, into bike tracks, scenic areas and refurbished hotels in an attempt to lure sporty travelers. “When I arrived, I thought Longyangxia was quite remote the scenery was beautiful but it was isolated and economically lagging,” said Ying Miyan, chairman of China’s largest salmon fishery, Qinghai Minze Longyangxia Ecological Aquaculture Co., which is sponsoring the Super Salmon 100km Ultra-Marathon Challenge there. Governments and companies in such far-flung mountainous regions have high hopes that this relatively small but fast-growing crowd of trail runners can bring big bucks that will boost business prospects. The crowd of sporty, middle-class urbanites had spent thousands of yuan to travel to Longyangxia Reservoir in northwestern Qinghai province for an “ultramarathon” - a drastic change from a decade ago, when few Chinese raced even in cities and gear might include jeans and flip-flops. A participant runs through a desert near the Longyangxia Reservoir in Gonghe County as she competes in the Super Salmon ultra-marathon, Qinghai province, China, August 11, 2018.
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