Hong Kong runners raise HK$450,000 by completing the 4 trails in memory of friend who died from Lymphoma
- Simon Robinson died having completed all but 1 of the 4 trails in the city, prompting some friends to finish the task
- The group raise enough cash to fund a new research project at Queen’s University Belfast
A group of runners have raised almost HK$500,000 in memory of a friend who died from Lymphoma, finishing a challenge he had set himself to complete Hong Kong’s four major trails.
The 10 friends of Simon Robinson, a trail runner, Sandy Bay rugby player and physiotherapist who was just 31 when he died, said they did it to “keep his spirit alive”.
Having set themselves the ambitious target of raising half a million dollars for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Northern Ireland, enough to fund a new research project at Queen’s University Belfast, they have reached HK$450,000 so far.
Robinson, who worked at the Joint Dynamics gym in Hong Kong, was admitted to hospital on May 4 last year, diagnosed with cancer on May 17 and died on May 22.
“It was such a shock. You go through a whole range of emotions trying to process something like that, that happened so quickly,” Oliver Marks, one of Robinson’s friends, said.
Robinson had planned to return to the UK for a few months in 2022 having been trapped in Hong Kong by the city’s strict Covid-19 rules, but had set himself the challenge of running the four major trails in four months.
