ITHome News on October 20: On October 20, Honor's Global Chief Running Officer, Kenyan marathon runner Sebastian Sauvi, Honor's Extreme Exploration Officer, Chinese trail runner Zhao Jiaju, and Honor's self-developed humanoid robot “Lightning” met in the same frame offline for the first time. The three long-distance running champions from different tracks held a cross-track dialogue between humanity and intelligent technology at the event through methods such as “on-stage racing interaction”.
The three “runners” appearing together have all made historic breakthroughs in their respective long-distance running fields. Sebastian Sauvi is the first legendary athlete in human history to complete an official marathon in under 2 hours, continuously pushing the limits of human running on the track; Zhao Jiaju is the first Chinese Asian champion to win the 330 km category of the 2026 Tor des Géants in Italy, repeatedly challenging the boundaries of physical endurance in extreme natural environments.
Honor's self-developed humanoid robot "Lightning," which competed alongside the two top human athletes, is likewise a formidable "long-distance running champion." In the 2026 Beijing Yizhuang Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon held in April this year, "Lightning," which had been in development for only 7 months, competed on behalf of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven team and won the autonomous navigation category with a net time of 50 minutes 26 seconds, and Honor's robots swept the top six places of the event. This result was also the first time a humanoid robot broke the human half marathon world record, proving that it can maintain excellent endurance, heat dissipation, stable control, and environmental adaptability in long-distance, highly complex environments.
In fact, this “three champions” meeting has long-standing origins. When Sauvi officially became “Honor Global Chief Running Officer” on May 17 this year, he paid tribute to “Lightning” via video at the Honor “Lightning” visit to Nanjing University graduation season event. Sauvi remarked at the time that it took humanity 118 years to push the full marathon time under 2 hours, while “Lightning”, in development for only 7 months, broke the human half marathon record. He believed that both humanity and technology are running forward and redefining limits, and expressed his hope to stand side by side with “Lightning” at the starting line for a contest.
From winning the half marathon and breaking the 100-meter record, to now meeting Sauvi and Zhao Jiaju offline in the same frame for the first time, three long-distance running champions of different dimensions gathered to jointly explore more possibilities of running.