奇速英语

On April 19, 2026, the Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon came to an end. A humanoid robot named “Flash” made a big surprise — it broke the human half-marathon record and won the championship.

“Flash” was developed by Honor, a Chinese company. It finished the 21-kilometer race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds. The previous human record was 57 minutes and 20 seconds, set by a runner from Uganda in March this year in Lisbon, Portugal.

Compared with the first race last year, this year’s event made great progress. Last year, only about 20 teams joined the race, and just 6 of them finished it. The winning robot took 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds to finish. This year, more than 100 teams took part, including 5 international teams. The teams came from 13 provinces, while last year they were only from 5 provinces.

Another big change is that over 40 percent of the robots competed autonomously this year. They used sensors and cameras to know their surroundings and finish difficult tasks by themselves, such as avoiding obstacles (障碍). Last year, engineers had to run after robots with their computers to control them. Besides, this year’s track was more challenging with more curves and slopes.

The top three robots in the race were all made by Honor. The company’s engineers said they are still doing research and haven’t started selling these robots yet. Beijing is working hard to develop the humanoid robot industry and will hold the second world-level robot games in August this year.