The Macao International Marathon, which takes place on Sunday, will not have athletes from abroad for the third consecutive year, the Institute of Sports of the Chinese region reported Monday.
A spokeswoman for the Institute told Lusa that the 41st edition of the contest there will be no marathon runners coming from outside of Chinawith only guest athletes from mainland China.
In September, the president of the Sports Institute, Pun Weng Kun, had said that the race would accept the registration of athletes from abroad, for the first time since 2019, as long as they complied with the quarantine.
Those arriving from abroad, Taiwan or Hong Kong are still forced to serve a five-day quarantine in a hotelfollowed by three days at home.
During the presentation of the race, Pun said that he hoped that “there are foreign athletes interested” in being present, but he admitted that the organization will focus, as in the two previous editions, on inviting the main marathon runners from mainland China.
The 12,000 places for the race were sold out, 1,400 for the marathon, 4,800 for the half marathon and 5,800 for the mini marathon.
As in 2021, participation requires a negative test and that athletes have been inoculated with at least two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in the 14 days prior to the race.
Official data from the Macao Health Services Contingency Coordination Center for the New Type of Coronavirus indicates that 91.7% of the population has already received at least two doses of the vaccine.
Macao follows the “zero covid” policy, like China, betting on massive testing of the population and confinement to prevent the spread of the disease.
The territory faced the worst outbreak of Covid-19 in June and July, leading to the imposition of a partial lockdown. Since the start of the pandemic, it has registered six deaths and more than 2,700 cases of the disease, including asymptomatic ones.
Source: Observadora
