So it is easy to understand why city governments across China are keen to hold marathon events. Take the city of Xiamen, in southeast China’s Fujian Province, for example, statistics show that the Xiamen Marathon boosted city business revenues by more than $92 million in 2017, according to Sina. The total annual domestic marathon industry output reached $11.4 billion in 2018 and continues to rise, according to a report by the CAA.Ī marathon event is profitable for the event operator and brings big business to the hosting city to boost the local economy, including its restaurant, tourism, and retail sectors. In 2019, registration fees alone may have generated hundreds of millions of dollars. Depending on the length of a particular race, the fees varied from $12.00 to $37.00 in 2018. ![]() ![]() Although most domestic marathons can rely on the sponsors' fees to run the races, race operators can further generate revenue by collecting registration fees from ordinary runners. Marathon races have been blooming across China in recent years, spawning an entire domestic marathon industry worth tens of billions of dollars. An official document released by the CAA called "2019 China Marathon Blue Book" shows that the number of participants in marathon races reached over 7 million in 2019, while the number of marathon-related races increased from 13 in 2010 to 1,828 in 2019, a stunning 140-fold surge, according to Chinese news portal Sina. In retrospect, marathons were originally a kind of niche event, but have become hugely popular in China since 2010, except for 2020 due to the epidemic. In addition, "Run China," a national annual marathon series co-organized by the Chinese Athletic Association (CAA) and CCTV state-run media, has enrolled a total number of 24 selected events spanning cities in China so far this year, according to the state-run media Xinhua. And within one week before that, there were more marathons in Beijing on April 24 with about 10,000 participants and Huai'an of Jiangsu Province on April 19. ![]() On May 6, a runner named Yang Lijie died in another mountain ultramarathon in Zhaotong city of Yunnan Province, Chinese news portal Sohu reported.Īt least 15 marathons were held in China during this year's May holidays, from May 1 to May 5, according to Chinese news portal NetEase. On May 5, a senior executive of a Shanghai-based corporation suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and passed away while running a desert marathon held in Guazhou of Gansu Province, according to Chinese social media Weibo. Just within the first week of this month, two other separate marathon deaths were reported. Liang Jing, a well-known runner who had won a 62-mile race in Ningbo, and Huang Guanjun, the marathon champion for hearing-impaired runners at China’s 2019 National Paralympic Games, were among those who died. The 100-kilometer (62-mile) mountain race was being held on May 22 in the Yellow River Stone Forest tourist site of Baiyin city in Gansu Province, when it was hit by hail, freezing rain, and gale-force winds that caused as many as 21 deaths out of a total of 172 participants.
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