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Seoul Marathon 2022 draws 20,000 runners

Posted March. 19, 2022 07:23,   

Updated March. 19, 2022 07:23

한국어

The 2022 Seoul Marathon, the largest race in South Korea, has ended a successful participant recruitment period.

In five days of participant recruitment starting from 10 a.m. on Monday, a total of 20,000 participants as of Friday finished their application for the 2022 Seoul Marathon organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the Korea Association of Athletics Federations, The Dong-A Ilbo and Sports Dong-A. The event has successfully filled all available slots with applicants for three years running since 2020 when it introduced an online race system due to the COVID-19 pandemic, reaffirming its status as the nation’s No. 1 marathon race.

“A huge traffic of applicants flooded onto the website and brought it down once applications become available on Monday,” the event’s secretariat said. “However, we were able to prevent a serious jam just as last year’s due to a sufficient buildup of servers.”

Even the COVID-19 pandemic has failed to cool marathon fans’ enthusiasm for the Seoul Marathon. It took only 14 hours to finish participant recruitment with all 12,000 slots occupied in 2020 – the first year of non-face-to-face race application. Recruiting 15,000 racers on a first-come, first-served basis last year, the event’s website was crowded with as many as 30,000 visitors at one go, leading to a temporary takedown. All available application slots were filled within the shortest time ever – one and a half hours. This year as well, it only took five days to attract a whole number of 20,000 participants.

Various souvenirs await this year’s participating runners. “We have a lot to offer including Adidas T-shirts, ZEROGRAM ramen pans for backpackers and campers and Ottugi Yeul Ramen,” the secretariat said. “Gifts for marathon masters such as ‘Orgain Protein’ and ‘AMINOVITAL Sets’ are highly acclaimed.”

In the 92nd Seoul Marathon this year, participants can join an online race regardless of where they are located with the aid of a running GPS app over two days – April 16 and 17.


Bae-Jung Kim wanted@donga.com