The Voices of Average Runners on the Street as Tokyo Marathon Cancels Mass-Participation Race and Other Races Follow Suit (updated)
After initially announcing that it would go ahead, the Feb. 23 Himeji Castle Marathon in Hyogo has now announced it will follow Tokyo's lead and cancel. The Neyagawa Half Marathon in Osaka announced that it will completely cancel its event the same day, which had 5,392 entrants supported by 1,350 volunteers this year. Entry fees will not be refunded, but all entrants will have the option to run next year's race for free. Also on Feb. 23, Saitama's Fukaya City Half Marathon announced it would cancel its race, saying that it would not return entry fees but would send entrants the program and entry goods and give them priority in entering next year, while Aichi's Inuyama Half Marathon canceled without specifying details, saying those will be posted on its website.
The Miura International Half Marathon, scheduled for the same day as the Tokyo Marathon in Miura, Kanagawa, also announced that it is canceling this year's 38th edition in the interest of minimizing health risks to runners, volunteers and spectators. 14,000 runners were entered. Plans for what to do about participants' entry fees will be announced later.
In Tokyo itself, the 38,000 entrants in the mass-participation race have been shut out, with the race going ahead with a field of only about 200 elite runners pursuing Olympic qualification. Entry fees to Tokyo will not be refunded, and while entrants will have priority in entering next year's race they will have to pay the entry fee again, 16,200 yen [~$150 USD] for domestic runners and 18,200 yen [~$165 USD] for international entrants.
Among the mass-participation runners who beat the odds to get into the Tokyo field and spent long hours training for it, people have shown understanding of the Foundation's decision while expressing highly mixed feelings about it. Shigeo Imai, 41, a company worker from Tokyo's western suburb of Chofu, could not hide his disappointment. In his ninth attempt he finally got through Tokyo's entry lottery this year. To help get into shape he biked the 23 km round-trip journey to his office every day, and he had already arranged for a colleague to fill in for him at work on race day. His wife and friends had planned to come into the city to cheer him on. "I'd like to at least know what they're going to do with our entry fees and charitable donations," he said.
Like Imai planning to run Tokyo for the first time, another male runner in his 30's from Tokyo's Chuo Ward commented, "It's a huge shock and I'm completely devastated." He had trained around Tokyo's Imperial Palace in pursuit of setting a PB at the Tokyo Marathon. "At the very least I'd like to have my entry fee back," he said. A woman from Kanagawa in her 30's would have made her marathon debut in Tokyo this year. "I guess there's no avoiding it getting canceled, but I'm still really disappointed that I won't get to run."
Katsuo Honda, 51, a corporate manager from Isahaya, Nagasaki who was going to have been running Tokyo for the first time in seven years, was understanding of the decision, saying, "I had already been thinking about not running due to the coronavirus' spread. The race's cancelation settled that. But at the same time, it's an Olympic year so I definitely wanted to run."
source articles:
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200219-00000014-kobenext-soci
https://bit.ly/2u7HwXq
https://bit.ly/2wjJO6u
https://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/sports/202002/0013124301.shtml
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200218-00000001-mai-spo
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200218-00000045-spnannex-spo
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200218-00000047-spnannex-spo
translated and edited by Brett Larner
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