A TEAM of 16 volunteer cyclists returned to Shenzhen yesterday after covering 5,511 kilometers across 11 provinces and three municipalities to promote the 2011 Shenzhen Universiade.
During the 46-day trip that began in Beijing, the team visited 20 universities and held various activities to encourage students to get involved in Shenzhen’s Universiade.
“The journey was quite tough, and it was physically and psychologically challenging,” said Hu Rong, a team member who is a postgraduate student at Shenzhen University. “Although heavy rain and hot weather were two of the biggest obstacles for us, we finished our task successfully.
“The schedule was very tight, and the team members rode more than 10 hours and about 200 kilometers a day. This was team work, and we helped and encouraged each other during the tour. We became good friends.”
Li Zhiqiang, team coach, said he was impressed by the team’s excellent work. “I used to believe that young people nowadays couldn’t suffer bitter life, but they encountered difficulties and tried their best to overcome them during the tour, which totally changed my mind,” said Li.
“The reason we chose cycling was to promote environmental awareness and energy saving in the Shenzhen Universiade,” said team leader Lin Mingwei. “During the journey we promoted the Universiade not only to university students, but also to citizens we met along the way.”
Lin, who is now employed by the executive office of the Universiade, has cycled through 23 countries in recent years when he wasn’t working as a sports teacher at Shenzhen Bao’an High School.
After the tour, some of the team members will fly to Belgrade, Serbia, for a a handover of the flag to Shenzhen at the closing ceremony of the Belgrade Universiade on July 12. They will then fly to the Peloponnesian Peninsula in Greece to promote Shenzhen and the Universiade to the world.
The team members, including four standby riders, were selected from more than 800 applicants nationwide through three rounds of online selection. All the members are volunteers and most are college students.
This riding activity is one of a series of cultural activities of the 26th Universiade.
The organizer dropped an original plan to send a cycle team to accept the Universiade flag in Belgrade by biking along the ancient Silk Road and crossing eight countries covering 10,000 kilometers because the journey was “too long and risky.”
Cai Yingbo