The first race of the 2025 Xiwuqi King of the Grasslands event was Friday’s sprint duathlon of just under 5 km in length. On the road bike, the two big favourites won the male and female finals as expected: Li Pengcheng and Lu Fangfang. The quickest participants on the MTB were Chen Tianhong and Tang Yucong.
While all morning heats took place in sunny conditions, the weather took a turn for the worse just after lunchtime. The ninth and final heat was hit by rain halfway through, which luckily did not really affect the times and the performances of those participants. In fact, it was the Kids KOG event that was mostly suffering from the heavy rain in the afternoon. To the extent, the running part was cancelled due to flooding of the transition zone at the Xiwuqi Ecopark entrance. The four heats of the kids race were reduced to only cycling as a consequence, but that was better than cancelling all together. Fortunately, even though also a bit unfair for the kids, the rain stopped 20 minutes before the start of the adult women’s final.
