A premapped course, a crew of handlers and a world-beating time: here’s what this Beijing half marathon reveals about how far humanoid robots have come—and how far they haven’t

Over the weekend, a bright-red Chinese humanoid robot named “Lightning” finished a half-marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, beating all 12,000 human competitors.

The star performer was a robot developed by the Chinese company Honor (the smartphone maker ), which finished the 13.1-mile race in 50 minutes, 26 seconds.