STORY: China's marathon industry sees strong growth: World Athletics official
SHOOTING TIME: Jan. 5, 2025
DATELINE: Jan. 5, 2025
LENGTH: 00:01:23
LOCATION: XIAMEN, China
CATEGORY: SPORTS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the 2025 Xiamen Marathon in east China's Fujian Province
2. SOUNDBITE (English): ALESSIO PUNZI, Head of Running and Mass Participation at World Athletics

STORYLINE:

China's marathon industry has seen robust growth both in quantity and quality, a World Athletics official said Sunday.

Alessio Punzi, head of Running and Mass Participation at World Athletics, made the remarks to Xinhua after firing the starting gun of the 2025 Xiamen Marathon in east China's Fujian Province.

SOUNDBITE (English): ALESSIO PUNZI, Head of Running and Mass Participation at World Athletics
"Now we have events growing, not just in terms of quantity, but also quality. The fact that in so many cities, marathons are being born all the time really speaks volumes of how much the marathon, road running, has entered the lifestyle of millions of Chinese people. And this can only be a great thing.
China is a very important contributor to the global development of the marathon movement. The first contribution is the promotion of a healthy lifestyle and physical activity. The second contribution closely connected with the first is the economic impact that all this is having. Millions of people who do road races and tens of millions of people who would like to do road races consume running-related stuff such as shoes, apparel, supplements, sports water, training apps, sports watches, you name it. So there is a sensible economic impact. Another contribution of the Chinese marathon movement to the world of global road running toward athletics is they provide competition opportunities to the best athletes in the sport, which have very few parallels in the world."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Xiamen, China.
(XHTV)