Humanoid Robots Compete in Beijing Half-Marathon | WION News

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]It was man versus robot at the 2026 Beijing E-Town Humanoid Robot Half Marathon that took place on Sunday. Over 100 robots joined over 12,000 people at the event, and for the first time it was a humanoid who took the top honors.

[00:00:17]Here's the report.

[00:00:22]The Chinese made humanoid robots ran alongside human participants, whizzing past thousands of runners during the 21 km half marathon. The event highlighted how quickly the technology has advanced since the race's inaugural edition last year, when many robots had struggled with balance and navigation, and most were unable to finish the course.

[00:00:53]There has again been a qualitative improvement this year in standards, in the capabilities of the participating teams, and in the breadth and depth of academic participation, all of which have improved significantly. The technical level has risen particularly fast.

[00:01:11]Last year's winning robot clocked 2 hours and 40 minutes, more than double the time of the human winner. This year the contrast was stark. The number of participating teams rose from 20 to more than 100, and several robot frontrunners were noticeably faster. Unlike last year, nearly half the robots navigated the course autonomously without being directed by remote control. The robots and more than 12,000 human [music] runners competed on parallel tracks to avoid collisions. The winning robot, Lightning, developed by Honor, finished the race in just 50 minutes and 26 seconds.

[00:01:49]That was 7 minutes faster than the half marathon world record set by Jacob Kiplimo in Lisbon last month.

[00:01:59]We are from Honor's Kitty and Dashing team, and today we are very honored to have won first place in the competition.

[00:02:05]Behind this result, in fact, lies the contribution and hard work of our entire team. We only began fully preparing this project last year, based on transferring platform capabilities from our mobile devices.

[00:02:19]The rapid progress suggests humanoid robots may soon move from experiments to real-world deployment.