In 1955, four athletes, led by Xu Jing, went to Soviet Transcaucasia to study mountaineering with an invitation from the Soviet Union. In 1957, six mountaineers, including Shi Zhanchun and Liu Lianman, summited Minya Konka, setting a domestic mountaineering record. The same year, the Soviet Union suggested to the Chinese Government that a Sino-Soviet joint climbing team should be formed for Mount Everest. The expedition was originally set for May 1959, but had to be postponed to 1960 due to the 1959 unrest in Tibet. Meanwhile, a 380 km-long road was built from Shigatse to Everest Base Camp, and a weather station was established. By 1960, however, Sino-Soviet split made a joint expedition impossible, and the Soviet Union team retracted all their equipment. The Chinese Government allocated 700,000 US dollars of foreign exchange to purchase mountaineering equipment from Switzerland. The total cost was comparable to that of the 1st National Games of China.