Every dog has its day: stray puppy steals the show at Chinese university sports event
Student runner broke the 3,000-metre race record with the fluffy campus resident guiding her to victory like a professional pacer.
In women’s long-distance running, athletes typically rely on coaches or professional pacers for motivation, but at a university sports event recently held in northern China, one student was encouraged by a fluffy, five-month-old campus resident named Bandeng.
The stray puppy became an overnight internet sensation after a video of it entering the track to accompany a female student at the end of her 3,000-metre race gained millions of views on Chinese social media platforms.
The dog must have been a good-luck charm as the female runner at Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics finished first with a time of 11:30.38, breaking the college record of 11:38.36 set in 2011.
In the video, as the athletes sprinted during the final laps, the dark brown puppy suddenly dashed onto the red track to run beside law student Qilegeer, guiding her to victory like a professional pacer.
The puppy was born on campus last December to another stray dog at the university, growing up on food and care provided by students and staff.