CHINA:An eight-year-old marathon star finally arrived in Beijing after running the length of the country to celebrate the 2008 Olympics, putting in a marathon and a half a day to cover the distance over 55 days.
During her odyssey, Zhang Huimin clocked up a total of 3,560km (2,212 miles), pounding the pavement from Sanya, at the southern tip of the tropical island province of Hainan, to the dusty streets of the capital.
She set out on July 3rd, with her father Zhang Jianmin, a farmer from Linggao, following her on a motorised bicycle. Mr Zhang has been accused of child abuse for allowing such a young child take on such a huge journey.
The pair arrived on Sunday, a couple of days ahead of schedule as they had not been expected to arrive in Beijing until August 28th.
Huimin cut quite a figure in the news reports and pictures covering her journey. She stands 125cm tall (just over four feet) and weighs in at just shy of 21kg (3st 4lb). The images of this diminutive athlete with such amazing stamina, running along in her pink Disney tracksuit accompanied by a group of adult runners, caused quite a stir in China.
A director of a sports school in Hainan said he had advised Mr Zhang to stop his daughter from her intense training "because it would affect the girl's heart, nerves and hormones", while one critic described him as a selfish father who was behaving like someone trying to make a plant grow faster by pulling it upwards.
There were reports that Huimin had a heavy cough after reaching Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, 15 days into her journey. There were also reports that Mr Zhang and his wife separated because she opposed his way of training their daughter, according to the Beijing News.
But Mr Zhang was unrepentant.
He said in an interview with The Irish Times that she said one day during training that she wanted to see the Great Wall of China, and he said "Well, why don't you run there?" "She loves running. I did not impose my will on her . . . It is worth paying the price and making sacrifices for the glory of the country," he told local media. Every day Huimin got up at 2.30am to train for the run and was in great shape for the trek, he said.
In June, Indian police stopped a five-year-old boy, who became a celebrity after a seven-hour run that sparked charges of abuse, from participating in a 500km (300 mile) walking event.