Skip to main content

Mayor Vows That Soja Kibiji Marathon Will Go Ahead: "What Is This Trend of Canceling Everything That Brings People Together?" (updated)

At a press conference on Feb. 19, Soichi Kataoka, mayor of Soja, Okayama, said that the Feb. 23 Soja Kibiji Marathon will go ahead as scheduled. As concern over the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to spread throughout Japan races scheduled for the next few weeks have been canceling one after another. Kataoka bucked the trend, saying that organizers would take every step possible such as distributing disinfectants at the race venue to make sure it could be staged safely. "What is this trend of canceling everything that brings people together?" he said.

The Soja Kibiji Marathon has 21,000 entrants from across the country, of whom 18,000 live within Okayama prefecture. It has no entrants residing abroad. If the situation worsens, for example if cases of infection with the virus within Okayama are confirmed before Sunday, Kataoka indicated that additional measures including cancelation will be considered.

At the same time, other events within Okayama have had cancelations. The city of Bizen announced that its Feb. 23 Hinase Kaki Festival on Feb. 23 will be canceled. Each year the festival brings in 50,000 people looking to enjoy the famous local oysters, but organizers judged that it would not be possible this year to ensure safe conditions for the participants.

Update: The Soja Kibiji Marathon has now been canceled.

source article:
https://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20200219/ath20021918030004-n1.html
translated and edited by Brett Larner

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...
82 comments
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
54 comments
Read more

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .
77 comments
Read more