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Mar. 6 Kagoshima Marathon Canceled

The Kagoshima Marathon organizing committee regrets to announce that this year's race scheduled for Mar. 6 has been officially canceled. 

The organizing committee had made careful preparations to hold the event for the first time since 2019 with COVID-safe protocols in order to meet the hopes of all the runners, volunteers and others who had been eagerly looking forward to its return, and to bring the local community something that would inspire it. But with the current explosive 6th-wave spread of new coronavirus cases throughout the prefecture and nationwide fueled by the highly infectious omicron variant, the situation is now one in which it is no longer possible to know for certain where or when someone was infected.

In consideration of this, we decided that we could no longer hold the race in a way that would ensure the safety of all participants, staff, volunteers and local residents, and with great regret have been forced to cancel it. We are painfully aware that this will be a major disappointment to all the runners who were kind enough to have chosen the Kagoshima Marathon from among the many other marathons out there and who have already put in most of their training in preparation. We ask for your understanding.

We can only hope that we're all out of this pandemic soon, and we will keep working to bring back the Kagoshima Marathon in a way that will be safe for everyone and will bring happiness to all the runners, volunteers, and locals.

Translator's note: The Kagoshima Marathon had 9,360 finishers in its last edition in 2019. This year's race was scheduled to be held the same day as the Tokyo Marathon.

source article:
translated by Brett Larner

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