Thousands of Chinese volunteers and many foreigners took part in
a charity race or the Terry Fox Run in Shanghai on Sunday in an aim
to collect funds for cancer patients.
The joggers joined the 8th annual Terry Fox Run in Pudong
Century Park in memory of the Canadian, who tried 25 years ago to
run across his country with an artificial leg after losing the
original limb to cancer. Fox died the following year.
With the dual goals of raising funds for cancer research and
generating awareness about cancer, the annual charity event has
been the largest of its kind held in the metropolis in eastern
China, according to the race's coorganizers of Shanghai Charity
Foundation and Shanghai General Administration of Sport.
Terry Fox, a Canadian athlete who lost his leg to cancer when he
was a teenager, launched a five-month Marathon of Hope in 1980 to
raise money for cancer research.
After running for 5,376 kilometers, the cancer that had taken
his right leg spread to his lungs and forced Fox to quit.
He died less than a year at 21, but his courage, vision and
determination continue to influence others.
People from about 70 countries and regions participated in the
charity event every year to continue Fox's goal of raising money
for cancer research.
Shanghai joined the tradition in 1998 by launching the 1st
Annual Terry Fox Run. Local residents and foreigners have raised
more than 2.2 million yuan (over US$270,000) in the past seven
consecutive events here for Terry Fox Run Cancer Research Center at
the local Ruijin Hospital.
To date, The Terry Fox Foundation has raised US$360 million for
cancer research, well beyond the one million dollars Terry Fox
hoped to raise on his trek.
(Xinhua News Agency October 24, 2005)