BEIJING – Long-distance runner Zhang Xiaotao was in the leading pack of the ultramarathon race in China in which 21 people died from hypothermia after being drenched by freezing rain and buffeted by gale-force winds on a mountain trail.
Of the half dozen frontrunners, Zhang was the only one to survive Saturday’s disaster in the highlands above the Yellow River in northwest China. Recovering from his ordeal, 29-year-old Zhang recounted how he was found unconscious by a herdsman who carried him to safety.
“I pressed SOS on my GPS tracker and then I passed out,” Zhang wrote in a post a day later on Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog popular in China.
“I was unconscious on the moun…
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