The story
Wuhan International Crossing Yangtze River Festival in Wuhan
Each July 16, marking the anniversary of Mao Zedong's 1966 Yangtze swim, Wuhan hosts a mass open-water crossing of the river organised by the Wuhan Swim Association, drawing close to two thousand swimmers across roughly thirty teams for an 1,800-metre crossing that has accepted international competitors since 2002.
Mao Zedong swam across the Yangtze at Wuhan on July 16, 1966, at the age of seventy-two, a widely publicised act he had already rehearsed in 1956 and 1958, and this festival commemorates that specific date every year with a mass open-water swim across the same stretch of river.