A humanoid robot named “Lightning” won a half-marathon for robots April 19 in Beijing, China, with a significantly faster time (50:26) than the human world record set last month (57:20), despite crashing into a barricade near the finish line and being helped up by humans, the Wall Street Journal reported. Technological leap. The performance by the remote-controlled robot marked a big step forward from last year’s inaugural race, when the winning robot finished in 2:40:42.