On Apr. 23 the city government of Matsumoto, Nagano announced that it was canceling this fall's Matsumoto Marathon after discovering accounting fraud in the event's operation. "We are going to conduct a review of how the race has been conducted up to now," a statement from the city read. Mayor Yoshinao Gaun apologized at a press conference, saying, "We sincerely apologize for letting down everyone involved in putting the event together." The Matsumoto Marathon is run by an executive committee made up of representatives from the city, the Matsumoto Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Shinano Mainichi Newspaper, and the relevant track and field associations. According to city officials, financial records for the November, 2023 edition of the race were fraudulently manipulated. Income from participants' entry fees was lower than expected, and although the city managed to get the Shinano Mainichi, to which it had outsourced overall event management, to r...
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First Seira Fuwa gets injured early in the year and misses the World Champs, then Mao Ichiyama and Hitomi Niiya contract COVID just prior to their world championship race and now the 'in form' Honami Maeda contracts COVID too. It's hard to believe! I can just hope all the athletes mentioned recover fully and can be at their best in the very near future. I was so looking forward to watching Honami Maeda in this race. I'm gutted. I can only imagine how she must be feeling.