Recently, the ‘Running@SJTU’ activity hosted by International Student Service Centre of Academic Guidance Committee (ISSC) ended successfully in the cross-border footsteps under the craze of advocating a healthy lifestyle in the ‘Year of Weight Management’. Sixty-two students from 19 countries, including China, the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia, completed the challenge of running together, and wrote a campus story of cross-cultural communication and love of sports with their sweat.
The following groups completed the activity:
This event continued the tradition of ‘Love Jiao Tong University, Love Sports’, encouraging Chinese and foreign students to team up to complete the 60km running goal. A total of 18 teams formed by students from different countries completed the challenge. The ‘Mickey Mickey’ team formed by Chinese and Thai students paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations; the ‘FasterThanYou’ team formed by Chinese and American students showed their confidence; Russian and Ukrainian students formed the ‘Killing Force’ team, watering the flower of friendship. Members of the team shared their home culture and deepened their friendship with each other during the run, while strengthening their bodies, and letting different cultures collide with each other in the footsteps.
In this event, students ran a total of 1,421.7 kilometres, equivalent to the distance from Shanghai to Beijing and back! The students' silhouettes travelled from Minhang to Xuhui, and from on-campus to off-campus, and many of them hit the ‘net red routes’ of Jiaotong University's campuses. A Pakistani student shared with a smile, "When I ran through the Arc de Triomphe, it was as if I had travelled to Paris, but my teammates reminded me that this was the Jiao Tong University version of the “Arc de Triomphe”, which instantly made me feel even cooler! "These footprints not only link up all corners of the campus, but also the precious memories of the students.
Running@SJTU has deepened the concept of ‘Sports + Culture’ through the mechanism of transnational team formation. As the person in charge of the event said, ‘Every kilometre we run is a link of cross-cultural understanding; every drop of sweat we shed is building a community of people from Jiaotong University around the world.’
In the future, Jiao Tong University will continue to use sports as a bridge, so that more students can read the world in running, and convey friendship in sweat. Youth never stops, the track is always moving forward, and more exciting stories of cross-country running are on the way!
Editor on Duty: Tao Qingxiao