Taipei runs full mass-participation event

by Brett Larner

Taipei Marathon
Sun 20 December 2020

Benefitting from the Taiwanese government's early steps to get control of the COVID-19 situation and its population’s responsibility in sticking to the protocols, the Taipei Marathon achieved what no other large-scale race could: a full-sized mass-participation field with 9000 marathoners and 19,000 half-marathoners, and an international elite field, all within the 2020 calendar year.

Not a reduced field, not a micro race, but a big city marathon the way we used to know them.

International athletes had to undergo a two-week quarantine in their hotel rooms, which organizers had fitted out with treadmills, but while most of them including Japan’s Hiroko Baino reported negative effects from the treadmill running on their performances there was still a new men’s course record of 2:09:18 from Paul Lonyangata (Kenya) and a near-miss from women’s winner Askale Merachi (Ethiopia) at 2:28:31.

Fresh from breaking the 10000m national record two weeks ago local runner Chun-Yu Tsao also took two minutes off her own national record to finish 4th in 2:32:41. Baino struggled with leg pain mid-race and finished 6th in 2:45:53.

Behind them were tens of thousands of amateur runners doing what the rest of the world can only dream of doing – six, nine, twelve months down the road.

Result

marathon

Men

1	Paul Kipchumba	LONYANGATA	KEN	2:09:18
2	Elisha Kipchirchir	ROTICH	KEN	2:13:07
3	Tiidrek	NURME	EST	2:16:11
4	Bilal	MARHOUM	MAR	2:16:22
5	Oleksandr	SITKOVSKYI	UKR	2:20:40

Women

1	Askale Merachi	WEGI	ETH	2:28:31
2	Alemtsehay Asefa	KASEGN	ETH	2:32:00
3	Zinash Mekonen	LEMA	KEN	2:32:24
4	Chun-Yu	TSAO	TPE	2:32:41
5	Gladys Lucy Tejeda	PUCUHUARANGA	PER	2:37:23