Vietnam: the race is on but runners need reassurance

Beating back the pandemic also affords the prospect of allowing social activities to return to normal. Many major sports activities have been organised since late May.

The return of major sports events, along with tourism promotion. has allowed DHA Ltd to believe that both the VPBank Hanoi Marathon ASEAN 2020 and the Halong Bay Heritage Marathon 2020 will be held as scheduled on 18 October and 22 November respectively.

Given the pandemic has not fully been controlled in many countries, and in order for runners to complete registration without any worries, DHA has announced its contingency plan as a way to reassure runners who sign up for its marathons.

As a worst case, there could still be two scenarios:

1. The Marathon is postponed due to the re-emergence of the pandemic and the government does not allow sports activities and mass events to be held.

2. Foreign runners who have registered to compete in Vietnam are forced to undergo a 14-day quarantine on arrival, so they will not be able to join the race.

If the above cases occur DHA propose the following options to support runners:

Option 1: The entire registration fee will be automatically transferred to the 2021 marathon.

Option 2: If the marathon cannot be held as planned due to the pandemic, the organisers will arrange an online race instead.

Registered runners can still join the online race for a fee of USD 15 (13 EUR), and will receive T-shirt and medal (Vietnamese and foreign runners need to cover the postage cost for shipping T-shirts and medals). The organiser will deduct USD 15 from the runner’s registration fee to complete the online race registration. The rest of the fee will be taken forward to the 2021 marathon. This means that the runner will only have to pay an additional USD 15 to compete at the registered distance of the 2021 race.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Hanh, DHA’s Executive Director, said: “The year 2020 is an exception due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Race Organising Committee has adjusted terms of the race to encourage runners to keep training, to overcome the pandemic and to enter races under the best conditions.”