Chinese automobile brand, Geely Auto, title sponsored the 2018 Ningbo International Marathon which took place on Sunday, October 28.
The Ningbo International Marathon was first held in 2015 and is organized by the Chinese Athletics Association, Sport Bureau of Zhejiang Province and Ningbo Municipal People’s Government. Three editions of the event have taken place with the 2017 edition cancelled. The 2018 edition is also the first time that the race has signed a title sponsor.
The marathon takes place in Ningbo Hangzhou Bay New Zone, an economic development area in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. The area hosts a large number of automobile-related brands and companies.
As the title sponsor of the 2018 edition of the event, Geely Auto organized a group of 1,000 runners comprising Geely employees and consumers. The President of Geely Holdings Group, Li Shufu, and some other executives at Geely Auto, also joined the running group.
One week prior to the running of the 2018 Ningbo International Marathon, Geely Auto organized a mini race near the Geely Auto Research Center in the Hangzhou Bay New Zone. The event’s participants included Geely Auto users and local runners who were given access to the Geely Auto research center to learn more about the technologies of the company.
On the day of the event Geely Auto provided supplementary materials in front of its Research Center entrance. A number of different Geely Auto automobiles were used in the race to realize different functions.
The brand has sponsored a number of different marathon races in China in recent years, such as the Zunyi and Taizhou Marathons. According to Li Shufu, the lifespan of the automobile industry is like a marathon race, the finishing point of which seems can never be reached and therefore, people in this industry should have the marathon spirit of working hard and never stopping.
Reference: Sohu
Proofread by Raymond Fitzpatrick