The 2022 Galaxy Entertainment Macao International Marathon set to take place on Sunday will not have athletes from abroad, for the third consecutive year, according to the city’s Sports Bureau (ID).
An ID spokeswoman told Lusa News Agency that the race’s 41st edition will not have any marathon runners coming from outside China, with only invited athletes from mainland China.
In September, ID President Pun Weng Kun said that the race would accept registration of athletes from abroad, for the first time since 2019, as long as they complied with Macao’s Covid-19 quarantine policy.
Pun said he hoped that “there are foreign athletes interested” in joining this year’s event, but admitted that, as in the previous two editions, the organising committee would focus on inviting the main marathoners from mainland China.
Anyone arriving from abroad, Taiwan or Hong Kong must comply with a five-day hotel quarantine requirement, followed by three days at home. Those who do not have a home in Macao must continue the extra three days of isolation in a hotel.
Meanwhile, all 12,000 places in this year’s race – 1,400 in the main marathon, 4,800 in the half-marathon and 5,800 in the mini-marathon – have all been filled.
As in 2021, participation requires a negative nucleic acid test result and all runners must have already received at least two doses of vaccination against Covid-19 in the past 14 days prior to this Sunday’s race.
Official data from Macao’s Health Bureau indicates that 91.7 per cent of the population has already received at least two doses of Covid-19 vaccines.
Like mainland China, Macao follows the ‘zero covid’ policy, betting on numerous mass tests for the entire population, as well as confinement, to prevent the spread of the disease.
Macao faced the worst Covid-19 outbreak in June and July, which led to the city’s partial lockdown. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the city has registered six Covid-19-related deaths and more than 2,700 cases of the disease, including asymptomatic ones.
