In a wild tech spectacle that sounds like a sci-fi comedy, humanoid robots attempted to run a half marathon in Beijing, and spoiler alert: it didn’t exactly go smoothly.

Imagine a race where mechanical athletes stumble, smoke, and crash more often than they actually run. This wasn’t your average Sunday jog - this was the first-ever humanoid robot half marathon, and it was a hilarious display of technological ambition meets mechanical limitations.

The Slowest Race in Tech History

The “winning” robot, Tiangong Ultra, finished the race in a glacial two hours and 40 minutes - which would make even the most casual human runner cringe. And here’s the kicker: this robo-athlete needed a human literally guiding its movements with a signaling device. Talk about training wheels for machines!

Robot Fails That’ll Make You Laugh

Most robots didn’t just struggle - they spectacularly failed. Some didn’t even make it past the starting line. The robot Shennong managed to trip its human support runner and then slam into a fence, shattering like a tech-enabled piñata. Another adorably named “Little Giant” dramatically paused mid-race with smoke emerging from its head - because apparently, robots get dramatic too.

The Real Winners: Human Runners

While the robots crawled through the course, human runners zipped past, with the male winner completing the race in a jaw-dropping one hour and two minutes. The robots’ performance was so underwhelming that the chief technology officer of X-Humanoid could only muster a defensive “I don’t want to boast, but…”. statement.

This race wasn’t just a marathon - it was a comedic testament to how far we are from robot dominance. For now, humans can rest easy knowing our mechanical counterparts are more likely to trip than triumph.