Thirteen cyclists with cancer set off yesterday on a 1,100km cycling tour around the country, ahead of a nationwide cycling trip at the end of the year to mark the Republic of China’s centennial.
Starting from Taipei, the group will pedal their way down the east coast to southern Taiwan before heading north along the west coast. They are scheduled to return to New Taipei City (新北市) on Friday next week.
Wu Hsing-chuan (吳興傳), a cancer sufferer who offers marathon and climbing training for the blind, said that when he was planning the event six months ago with another cancer patient, Hsieh Yung-chao (謝永照), he was not sure if anyone would join them.
However, through the Internet, they were able to find 11 other riders who were keen to participate, proving that “if you do the right thing, people will follow you,” Wu said.
“We want to tell all cancer patients that as long as you live a normal life, eat healthily and do an adequate amount of exercise, you can be as healthy as us,” Hsieh said before the riders took off.
The group’s message will be highlighted in a 3D public service commercial scheduled to be shown on local television in February next year.
One of the riders, 37-year-old athlete Lin Fang-chen (林舫楨), said she hoped to encourage more cancer patients and their families by participating in the event.
Lin, who was diagnosed with follicular thyroid cancer three years ago, said she wanted to tell cancer sufferers that “there’s nothing that cannot be overcome.”
The group consists of athletes, a salesperson, a nurse and a computer engineer.
Mou Ti-min, a doctor who volunteered to accompany the group, said that because the cardio functions of the cyclists were good, his main job was to ensure that they ate well and that he was prepared to treat sprains and strains.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said he greatly respected the bikers’ courage in confronting their illnesses and embarking on this new challenge.
The event will also serve to promote a nationwide cycling trip, “One Bike One,” which has so far attracted more than 70,000 registrants, the organizer said a day earlier.
Participants for that event will set off from 1,000 checkpoints nationwide, including the outlying islands, on Dec. 31 and will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most cyclists riding at once.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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