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

Saku Chosei H.S. Makes It 2 In a Row - National High School Ekiden Boys' Race

While the girls' race was a blowout by 2022 champ Nagano Higashi H.S. , the boys' race at Sunday's National High School Ekiden was a tense battle of turnover that saw all of the final top four teams take a stab at leading. 2023 3rd-placer Yachiyo Shoin H.S. handled the first 2 of the 7 stages in the 42.195 km race, with lead runner Rui Suzuki delivering a bold run on the 10.0 km First Stage that produced the fastest-ever time by a Japanese runner on the stage, 28:43, and put Yachiyo Shoin 29 seconds out front. Last year's Fifth Stage CR breaker Tetsu Suzuki ran Yachiyo Shoin down to put 2023 champ Saku Chosei H.S. into 1st on the 8.1075 km Third Stage, but Genta Sugano of last year's 8th-placer Sendai Ikuei H.S. had other plans and took the lead on the 8.0875 km Fourth Stage. Smiling and fist pumping to the crowd almost the entire way, Taketo Tsukada of last year's 6th-placer Omuta H.S. moved up from 3rd to 1st by 2 seconds over Saku Chosei on the 3.0 k...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nagano Higashi Girls Lead Start to Finish to Win National High School Ekiden

2022 National High School Ekiden girls' champion Nagano Higashi H.S. was back in force after a 5th-place finish last year, leading start to finish to win this year's national title Sunday in Kyoto. Lead runner Airi Mashiba kicked it off with a 19:30 stage win on the 6.0 km opening leg, something that head coach Fumio Yokouchi said later that he hadn't been expecting. That ended up being Nagano Higashi's only individual stage win in the 5-leg, 21.0975 km race, but the rest of its team ran well enough to hold a lead that was never less than 11 seconds but never more than 21. Last year's 4th-placer Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. spent most of the race in 2nd, but over the second half of the race Sendai Ikuei H.S. , 2nd last year by just 1 second, came from further back to run Kunei down on the anchor stage thanks in big part to a critical stage win on the 4th leg by Tsubomi Tezuka that put anchor Aoi Hosokawa in position to catch Kunei's Mizuki Oda . Nagano Higashi ...
1 comment
Read more

JRN's Ten Most-Read Stories of 2024

Hirabayashi Knocks 'em Out in Osaka - Feb. 25 Fresh off the equivalent of a 1:00:40 half marathon on Day One of the Hakone Ekiden, 21-year-old Kiyoto Hirabayashi of Koku Gakuin University ran a debut and collegiate record 2:06:18 to win the Osaka Marathon. Post-race his coach Yasuhiro Maeda compared Hirabayashi to former NR holder Atsushi Fujita , Maeda's teammate in their days at Komazawa University . Ethiopian Waganesh Nekasha won the women's race in 2:24:20. ASICS Apologizes for Typo on Tokyo Marathon T-Shirts - Feb. 28 Tokyo Marathon sponsor ASICS issued an apology after selling an official t-shirt with a misspelled English word on it even though the misspelling actually increased the shirt's appeal. Sutume Asefa Kebede and Benson Kipruto Run Fastest-Ever Marathons in Japan to Win in Tokyo - Mar. 3 Ethiopian Sutume Asefe Kebede and Kenyan Benson Kipruto ran the fastest times ever produced on Japanese soil, Sutume dropping Rosemary Wanjiru at 40 km to win ...
Post a Comment
Read more