In January 2014, I finished a project of more than 2 years to finish the 200km speed skating event “Alternative Speed Skating Challenge” in the White Lake (German: Weissensee) in Austria. After skating the 200km in eleven and a half hour, I decided that I wanted to do something else in 2015.

My story of the Great Wall Skating Challenge began in September 2014. I asked my Chinese skating colleague with whom I had participated in the White Lake project what he had in mind for 2015. He pointed me at an internet site where a speed skating event in China was announced. I recognized that event. In January 2104 the event was reported by the Dutch TV News. After reading the web site, I didn’t find much information about the ice condition at the Yellow river. I had more questions than answers when I searched information about this event on internet. It seems that much speed skaters have talent to skate, but no talent in writing skills.

In October 2014, I decided to phone the travel office to get more information about this skating event. They told me that It was decided that the event is definitively taking place, and that if I have plans to skate in China, I should pay the fee as soon as possible so that they can book a seat on the air plane.

I have never visited the main land of China, only Hong Kong and Macau. It didn’t took me long time to accept the challenge. The next day I transferred the total entry fee to the travel office and I informed my Chinese skating colleague that I decided to participate in the Great Wall Skating Challenge. He was surprised. He had only interest to participate and he had neither contacted the travel office and he had neither visited an information meeting.

We did Hiking trip afetr Skating

At 0915 o’clock the group went for a hiking trip. It would be a hard hiking day. To illustrate the difficult hiking trip, I made many pictures. We walked along a side river of the Yellow River, which was some 50 meters above the river. And then we went downhill to cross the river. There, we visited a deserted village and we followed a broken section of the Greater Wall. At around 1400 o’clock we arrived at the end of the tour at a farmers house where we had lunch. Inside the house there are 2 rooms where you can eat. In both rooms, you could eat at a place where normally a bed was resided. You had to climb 60cm and sit without chair around a table. Because our group was too big for 2 rooms, I decided to eat outside. Besides, the sun shined. At the menu was noodles with dried chili pepper.

~~Written by Jan Cheung