Runner beat out hundreds in China marathon — and did it while chain-smoking cigarettes
A man in China recently went viral for running a marathon while chain smoking, though the unhealthy habit didn’t appear to hamper his performance.
The 50-year-old man, a grandfather who goes by the nickname “Uncle Chen,” completed the Xin’Anjiang Marathon in Jiande, a province in southwest China, earlier in November, according to The Telegraph.
He finished the 26.2-mile race in three hours and 28 minutes, according to the Canadian Running magazine, finishing 574th out of about 1,500 runners, meaning he smoked about two-thirds of the competition.
Despite smoking, Chen’s time also fell below the global average for male marathon runners, 4 1/2 hours, according to a 2019 study of marathon runners.
Photos of him ripping cigarettes while running quickly spread on Weibo, the widely used Chinese social media app, according to the Canadian Running magazine.
Chen has been spotted puffing cigarettes while competing in marathons in the past, according to Runner’s World. He also reportedly only smokes while running, perhaps in an effort to balance a vice with a virtue.
The reaction to his photos online has been mixed, according to the Express, with one commenter on Weibo saying, “Whoever is next to him is unlucky,” while another on Instagram said, “There goes my hero. Watch him as he smokes.”
More than half of adult men in China smoke tobacco, according to the World Health Organization. Roughly one of every three cigarettes smoked on Earth is smoked in China.
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