China Athletics Association released the Annual Report of 2019 China Marathon.
The annual work of the 2019 Marathon includes the following three aspects:
Work in 2019
(A) to complete the substantive reform of the association and add new impetus to the construction of a strong country in track and field.
2019 is the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China, the year when the Outline of Building a Powerful Sports Country was promulgated, the crucial year for China’s track and field to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, and the year of the substantive reform of the Chinese Athletics Association.
After more than a year of preparation, the materialization of the association was officially implemented at the end of October 2019, which took an important step in deepening the decoupling reform of industry associations. The reform of association materialization is an exploration and climbing road for China track and field, as a basic item, to insist on high-point positioning and courage to take responsibility in the new era, and to stride towards socialization, marketization, specialization and internationalization. It is also a road to form an industry management of "establishing according to law, holding meetings independently, serving as the foundation, standardizing governance and self-discipline", and also to better develop the track and field cause centered on the people, stimulate the vitality of preparing for the Olympic Games, and comprehensively implement the Outline for the Construction of a Sports Power.
Marathon, as an important starting point for China Athletics Association to lead the national fitness and practice the national strategy of healthy China, will further liberate productivity and new energy after the substantive reform of the association, release more vitality through the transformation of management system, operation mechanism and ideas, and add new impetus to the construction of a sports power.
Statistics show that the number of marathon events continued to grow in 2019. A total of 1,828 large-scale events (road running with more than 800 people, cross-country and hiking with more than 300 people) were held nationwide, covering 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, with 7.12 million participants.
(two) the introduction of marathon classification pilot units, improve the new mechanism of three-level event management.
In recent years, China Athletics Association has actively promoted the rapid development of road running represented by marathon along a healthy, standardized and orderly track through measures such as system, standard construction, professional personnel training, event culture dissemination, series event creation and grade event evaluation.
In order to make the marathon event management system more scientific and perfect, we have established a three-level marathon event supervision system, and gradually exerted its actual effect. All kinds of events at all levels are rich in content, distinctive in features, clear in hierarchy and orderly in lifting. Form a relatively complete standard specification in the organization of events, service for players, safety guarantee, environmental protection, information release and public opinion environment. The socialization, standardization, marketization, professionalization and internationalization of marathon events have been established and gradually matured and developed healthily.
We will launch a marathon classification pilot unit and improve the new mechanism of the three-level event management system. Anhui, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Zhejiang and other six provinces, as the first batch of management pilot units, introduced their own measures for the management of marathon events within the province according to the relevant regulations of the IAAF, and assisted the China IAAF to gradually play an active role in the organization and management of marathons in relevant territories.
(3) Explore new ways of marathon professionalization, and study club registration and league events.
In 2019, the number of events and the number of participants in the China Marathon will continue to rise, and the competitive level of the marathon will be further improved. The requirements for the standardization, specialization, socialization, marketization and professionalization of the China Marathon are even more urgent. China Athletics Association will guide all kinds of sports social organizations to operate in accordance with laws and their respective articles of association, strengthen the socialization, professionalism and marketization of marathon, gradually implement the registration system of marathon clubs and gradually build the China Marathon Club League.
By perfecting the competition system of China Marathon and standardizing the professional marathon club, it will not only deepen the mass base and improve the enthusiasm for participation, but also lay a good foundation for the professional development of track and field sports, especially middle and long distance running events. Professional marathon clubs provide high-level training conditions for registered and unregistered athletes, which will help to improve the competitive level of China Marathon and other middle and long-distance running events, and form a benign blood transfusion assistance mechanism for China track and field to win glory for the country.
(four) to meet the diverse fitness needs of the public, organize and carry out various sports activities such as hiking and cross-country.
People’s health is an important symbol of national prosperity and national prosperity. As an important symbol of people’s growing needs for a better life, healthy life has been paid more and more attention.
In order to meet the diversified fitness needs of the public, the Chinese Athletics Association actively carries out various kinds of events. The association organizes different forms of road running fitness activities around teenagers, women, the elderly, the disabled and other people, combined with the characteristics of age and crowd. Actively promote parent-child running and women’s half marathon, add racing wheelchair groups in large-scale events, organize and hold youth fun track and field games and veteran track and field games, and create a "well-off" marathon series for poverty-stricken areas (national poverty-stricken counties); In order to further improve the service level of road running activities, which is convenient for the people and the people, according to the needs of community residents for running, the event activities are sent to the residents, and the community running is designed and built to benefit the track and field culture. In order to meet the diverse needs of the people, new organizations have carried out hiking, cross-country and other events.
(E) The introduction of event safety monitoring and intervention system, adding a new guarantee for marathon safety.
With the rapid development of China’s social economy, the marathon has developed by spurt, which has become an important platform to promote national fitness, carry forward sports culture and build a healthy China.
This year, in order to improve the safety service level of marathon events, China Athletics Association provided heart rate early warning big data operation system services for registered events of the association. Through the linkage of AI early warning screen, smart wearable device, small program score query and medical APP, we will provide safety escort for runners throughout the whole process, and gradually build a safe, scientific, perfect and benign marathon sports ecosystem.
The association will establish a marathon heart rate early warning big data operation platform step by step to improve the safety service level of marathon events and strengthen humanistic care for runners. First, establish a heart rate early warning safety intervention system to strengthen the protection of athletes and provide guarantee for runners to finish the race safely; The second is to build a smart marathon heart rate early warning big data operation platform, collect and analyze athletes’ sports data, and provide a basis for scientific training; The third is to provide professional consultation and services in nutrition, rehabilitation, physical fitness and other aspects based on personalized training.
(6) Cooperate in micro-live broadcast of marathon events and explore new formats of marathon cultural communication.
In this year, the spread of registered events of China Athletics Association continued to expand. Through the micro-live broadcast platform, there were 21 online live track and field events in 2019, and more than 5 million people watched online.
In the process of promoting the reform and development, China Athletics Association introduced new technologies such as micro-live broadcast into the event broadcast with the help of the advantages of new media communication, and used other social media platforms such as live interactive platform and webcast to transmit marathon information to different circles to maximize the communication effect.
At present, with the development of the road running industry represented by marathon, runners, host cities, sponsors, event execution companies, timing chip manufacturers, event image service agencies, etc. have built their own ecology. In the process of ecological improvement, the communication innovation represented by micro-live marathon is becoming the pulse of China Road Running.
Marathon micro-live broadcast platform will become a strategic platform for the integration and development of "media+industry" of China Athletics Association. Micro-live broadcast service provides pre-competition promotion, in-competition live broadcast interaction and post-competition big data analysis services for the event organizers, forming a complete service chain, helping to enhance the visibility of the event and optimize the operation strategy of the event.
(VII) Undertaking international first-class conferences and creating a new height for international exchange of China Marathon.
This year, the 2019 IAAF Road Running Conference was held in Lanzhou, China. This is the first time that IAAF has settled its annual road running conference in Asia and China. It is an industry event with the highest specifications, the largest number of participating countries (regions) and the largest number of people in the world.
The IAAF Road Running Conference is an opportunity for the deep exchange and integration of China’s wisdom and international ideas, which not only creates a better international platform for Lanzhou, but also brings more cooperation opportunities for the China Marathon. This is not only an opportunity for direct dialogue between the domestic organizing committee and the international organizing committee, but also a big gathering and exchange of the global road running industry, which has contributed wisdom to the further development of the world road running cause.
In addition to the IAAF Road Running Conference being held in Lanzhou, China for the first time, domestic marathon events are also actively going international. Yangzhou, China successfully bid for the 2022 World Half Marathon Championship, and Chengdu Marathon entered the candidate city of the World Marathon Grand Slam.
With the development of road running in China, the international influence and discourse power of track and field in China have been continuously improved. In 2019, Wang Nan, vice chairman of China Athletics Association, was elected as director of IAAF and vice chairman of IAAF. Xiaoying Wang, deputy secretary general of the Association, was elected as vice chairman of Asian Veterans Athletics Federation, and seven others were successfully elected as members of the committee of IAAF. More and more China people hold important positions in the world sports arena.
Problems and shortcomings in the development of marathon in China at present
Looking back on 2019, the China Marathon has made a great leap from quantitative change to qualitative change, but we must see that the current development of marathon in China still faces some challenges and difficulties, mainly in the following aspects:
(A) the contradiction between the rapid increase in the number of marathon events and the relatively limited management ability and resources
In 2019, the number of national marathons reached 1828, and the overall marathon showed a healthy, stable and vigorous development. At the same time, the China Marathon also faces some problems, such as uneven competition quality, lack of competition management talents and relatively limited social resources. How to strengthen the management and coordination of the association to the whole industry is still an important topic for a long time to come.
(B) The contradiction between the masses’ demand for high-quality events and the relatively limited quality events
Nowadays, marathon is becoming the epitome of more and more people’s pursuit of a better life, and the demand of runners for high-quality events is also growing geometrically. However, looking at the China Marathon, the service awareness and ability of some organizers are still limited, and the overall proportion of high-quality events is still not high, so it is difficult to meet the needs of the masses for high-quality events.
(3) The masses’ knowledge and function of marathon scientific fitness, their awareness of the rules of participation and their awareness of etiquette value need to be improved.
Some runners lack scientific fitness awareness, have weak control over their own sports ability, and blindly follow the trend to cause sports injuries; Some runners don’t have a deep understanding of the awareness of rules, and there are some behaviors such as players taking the place of running and rubbing. Some runners’ understanding of marathon culture is not in place, and there are uncivilized behaviors such as littering.
(D) The degree of internationalization needs to be improved.
First, the attractiveness of the China Marathon to foreign runners needs to be improved, and more measures should be taken to attract foreigners to participate in high-quality events such as North Malaysia and Shangma. Second, compared with international first-class events, the brand value of China Marathon events needs to be further explored.
(E) The breadth of mass participation is not in harmony with the high development of competitive level.
In contrast to the deep mass base, the performance of China Marathon is not ideal. Mainly manifested in three aspects: first, the number of people who finished the race in Malaysia is not high in the overall runners; Second, the number of high-level players is generally small; Third, the competitive level is relatively low. Today, with the unprecedented participation of the masses, the performance of China Marathon is in urgent need of breakthrough.
Work plan for 2020
In 2020, in the face of the new era, new goals, new tasks and new requirements of marathon development, we must adhere to the people-oriented, reform and innovation, rule the body according to law, and work together to continuously improve the quality and efficiency of marathon development.
We should persist in taking the people as the center and vigorously promote the role of marathon in the deep integration of national fitness and national health. Careful design, careful deployment and steady progress will make the marathon in China standardized, socialized and scientific, and help build a strong sports country and a healthy China.
The specific work is as follows:
(A) release the energy of the association’s substantive reform and further promote the high-quality development of marathon events.
After more than a year of preparation, the materialization of the association was officially implemented in October 2019, and the materialization operation mechanism was initially established, which laid the foundation for the work of the association after its transformation. In 2020, the association will further change its management system, operational mechanism, ideas and concepts, continuously strengthen the construction of its governance system, and improve its industry governance capacity. Focusing on the substantive reform of the association, we should seize opportunities, improve efficiency and build and share.
Through the reform, we will promote the marathon project to achieve its own breakthrough development in the new era, improve management efficiency, integrate social resources, unite all walks of life in the country, and jointly promote the high-quality development of China marathon. By innovating and improving the operating mechanism of the marathon industry, we will guide more social resources and forces to gather in the marathon project to realize the co-construction and sharing of the industry, so that every marathon participant can feel the fruits brought by the reform and promote the healthy and orderly development of the marathon industry in China.
The marathon event system has been gradually improved. All kinds of competitions at all levels are rich in content, clear in hierarchy and orderly in lifting, and form relatively complete standards and norms in terms of competition organization, player service, safety and security, environmental protection, information release and competition replenishment.
(2) Tamp the tower foundation and tower top, and boost the competitive performance through the group thickness.
In 2019, the association did a lot of work in enhancing the thickness of marathon groups and improving marathon performance. In 2020, we will continue to promote the strategy of "Chinese people racing and running for all", and strive to achieve a double harvest in terms of group thickness and competitive performance.
Specifically, in 2020, we will adhere to the sports idea of "people-centered" as the starting point and end result of marathon work, meet the diverse needs of the masses for events, gradually establish a multi-level mass event system, guide marathon enthusiasts to actively participate, and let the people feel the happiness and satisfaction brought by marathon by participating in activities and events. At the same time, through running promotion, race activities, runner service, urban empowerment and cultural guidance, we will continuously meet the needs of Chinese people for a healthy body and a better life, develop mass sports, promote national fitness, and consolidate the foundation of China Marathon.
On the other hand, the Association will further promote the athletes’ incentive plan, the events’ incentive plan and the teenagers’ incentive plan, prepare the club, set up the club selection system, training system, competition system and reward system, formulate the management mechanism, improve the business operation ability and the competitive level of China Marathon.
(3) Strengthen socialization and professionalization, and start the China Marathon Club League.
In order to better guide and encourage the development of China Marathon in the direction of standardization, specialization, socialization, marketization and professionalization, and promote the development and improvement of the competitive level of marathon, China Athletics Association will organize the registration of China Marathon Club in 2020 and the club league in 2021. Make use of the professionalism, specialization and standardization of the club to let more people participate in the improvement of competitive level.
At the same time, the association will increase the professional training of mass marathon organizations, and conduct training around the management and promotion, training, participation, organization and operation of marathon organizations at all levels according to the needs of marathon organizations to carry out activities. Set up models and demonstrations to promote the overall development of mass marathon organizations.
(4) Optimize the organization standards of cross-country and hiking events, and expand the China Marathon and related sports forms.
Continue to build events with high mass participation. Improve the organization standards and rules design of hiking events, and enhance the interest and attraction of hiking events. Establish technical standards for running cross-country races, and build cross-country series races (grass cross-country, mountain cross-country, sea cross-country, beach cross-country, forest cross-country, snow cross-country, etc.) and brand races according to local conditions.
Actively explore, create a more interesting, playful and participatory marathon-related sports form, and promote its serialization and brand development, meet the diverse needs of the masses, and expand the China Marathon and related sports forms.
(E) Improve the marathon sports industry system and build a new pattern of road running industry development.
Build a marathon sports industry system with reasonable layout and perfect functions, form a benign development model of government guidance, social participation and market operation, build a new mechanism of diversification of investment subjects, diversification of financing methods and marketization of operation methods, realize the new situation of marathon sports industry’s inheritance, innovation and coordinated development, and promote the new growth of marathon sports industry.
In 2020, we will cultivate diversified market players of marathon sports industry and give full play to the positive role of marathon social organizations in popularizing marathon sports, organizing marathon exchange platforms and serving road runners. Strengthen the management and support of marathon social organizations, guide all kinds of sports social organizations to operate and enhance their vitality according to laws and their respective articles of association, and cultivate multi-form and multi-level marathon associations or clubs.
Promote the integration and development of marathon and related industries. Promote the derivative superposition of industrial chains, strengthen the relationship between marathon operation and urban industrial development, publicity and promotion, strengthen the contact and exchange between the government, media and marathon event operating institutions, running associations and running groups, enlarge and strengthen the economic scale of marathon events, and promote the development of marathon training industry, marathon equipment manufacturing industry, marathon technical service industry, marathon media industry and other related industries; Create a new form of marathon+industrial development, and vigorously promote the integration and development of marathon with science and technology, tourism, health, leisure, culture and other industries.
Promote the continuous growth of market players. A group of leading enterprises with great influence and strong driving force and a large number of innovative and energetic small and medium-sized enterprises have been produced, and a number of well-known brands in the industrial chain such as event operation, marathon clubs, sports apps and outdoor sports products have been formed.
Promote the expansion of industrial consumption population. Continuously increase the population of runners and increase the proportion of marathon consumption to per capita disposable income. Encourage all localities to combine humanities, natural landscapes and other characteristics to develop diversified events according to local conditions. Actively guide the development of key events with demonstration effect, and diversify to meet the people’s hierarchical and diversified needs for marathon.
(6) Promote the construction of marathon culture and cultivate new highlights of marathon culture communication.
Promote the construction of marathon culture and further enhance the cultural influence of China Marathon. Organize and excavate the marathon history and data files, inherit the excellent marathon culture, and deeply study the connotation of marathon culture. Explore the integration of marathon cultural resources and create a well-known marathon cultural brand activity.
Carry forward the marathon culture and raise people’s awareness of the value function of marathon. Popularize the functional value of marathon, let more people know the fitness knowledge of marathon, publicize the fitness effect and carry forward the health concept. Introduce the basic knowledge and rules of marathon, marathon culture and marathon spirit in all kinds of marathon events and activities at all levels, so that the masses can fully understand and feel the cultural charm of marathon.
Cultivate new channels and new highlights of marathon cultural communication. Give play to the demonstration effect of runners, pay attention to the experience of runners and the public, dig stories with runners as the main line, spread and publicize the fun of participating in running, and expand the channels for the public to gain a sense of honor and accomplishment through marathon.
(7) Strengthen the progress of internationalization and build an international brand of marathon with China characteristics.
Further promote the internationalization of China Marathon, actively participate in the activities and meetings of international track and field organizations such as IAAF and ATF, promote the industry exchange between China Marathon and other countries, and constantly expand the circle of friends in the world of China Marathon.
Further promote the socialization, professionalization, internationalization and industrialization of China Marathon, open up the market, strengthen the standardization construction, and form an international marathon brand with China characteristics. And integrate with international competitions, exchange and communicate with each other, and constantly integrate into the world’s highest level stage.
(eight) in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, scientific and orderly organization to carry out the annual competition.
Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, many marathon events will be postponed in the first half of 2020. After the epidemic, China IAAF will help the event operators to resume the event organization, coordinate industry resources, and help small and medium-sized enterprises reduce the losses and impacts caused by the epidemic.
The second half of the year is bound to be an extremely fierce competition for marathon events. In the face of the foreseeable hot situation, corresponding measures and plans will be introduced to co-ordinate and organize marathon events across the country to carry out related work in a scientific and orderly manner.