How does Singapore's #racethetube stack up against the rest of the world's?

Four relay runners racing the MRT train from Little India to Farrer Park in a promotional video for the upcoming Asics City Relay run. -- PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM YOUTUBE 
Four relay runners racing the MRT train from Little India to Farrer Park in a promotional video for the upcoming Asics City Relay run. -- PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM YOUTUBE 
Four relay runners racing the MRT train from Little India to Farrer Park in a promotional video for the upcoming Asics City Relay run. -- PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM YOUTUBE 
Four relay runners racing the MRT train from Little India to Farrer Park in a promotional video for the upcoming Asics City Relay run. -- PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM YOUTUBE 
Four relay runners racing the MRT train from Little India to Farrer Park in a promotional video for the upcoming Asics City Relay run. -- PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM YOUTUBE 
Four relay runners racing the MRT train from Little India to Farrer Park in a promotional video for the upcoming Asics City Relay run. -- PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM YOUTUBE 
Four relay runners racing the MRT train from Little India to Farrer Park in a promotional video for the upcoming Asics City Relay run. -- PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM YOUTUBE 

If you have not seen the video of four runners here racing the MRT, you probably have not been on Facebook much. The video, which is in fact a promotion for an upcoming run called the Asics City Relay, shows four men running a relay race from the Little India to Farrer Park stations on the North East line.

The video uploaded on YouTube on Nov 13 received more than 100,000 views in a week, and was widely shared on social media. While one YouTube commenter described the video as "epic" and others chimed in with similar positive comments, some said that it is possible that the relay was not shot in one sequence, and could have been pieced together to make it look like they really did manage to catch the train.

The effort is not new. While it was been done here and there years ago, it recently became a trend after a video of a man who raced the London tube in Britain was uploaded on YouTube on Aug 12 this year. The video received more than 5 million views in four months. His video sparked a trend that has gone global.

The hashtag #racethetube has also emerged on both Facebook and Twitter. Trains in Glasgow in Scotland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Madrid in Spain, Budapest in Hungary, and Stockholm in Sweden have all seen some competition. Races in the other countries involved just one man running to catch the train.

At least three videos of men racing the tube in a wheelchair were also uploaded, in a bid to shed light on accessibility issues. And then there's the race in Berlin, Germany, just for laughs.

Watch the dizzying videos and decide: How did Singapore's stack up against the rest?

jalmsab@sph.com.sg

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