VnExpress Marathon to become an annual event in central Vietnam

The scale of the event will be expanded from the VnExpress Marathon that was held this June, which attracted around 5,000 runners, 100 of them foreigners to the beach town of Quy Nhon, the capital of Binh Dinh Province.

"VnExpress Marathon Quy Nhon 2019 brought great publicity for Binh Dinh. It attracted a lot of runners and tourists, domestic and foreign, to the province," the Binh Dinh administration wrote in an official document sent to VnExpress.

It was an opportunity for Quy Nhon and Binh Dinh to promote tourism and broadcast their images to the world, and so the province will continue to host the race for the next five years, they said.

VnExpress Marathon is the only marathon in Vietnam that sets the course through the Thi Nai (2.5 km) sea overpass, in Quy Nhon. Photo by VnExpress.

National athletes Le Quang Hoa of Da Nang, and Pham Thi Hong Le of Hanoi were the winners of the 42km VnExpress Marathon 2019, with respective times of 2:41.57 and 2:52.41 in the men’s and women’s race respectively.

Their victory has enabled Hoa and Le for the 2020 Boston Marathon, one of the four most prestigious marathons in the world.

So far, four Vietnamese athletes have successfully signed up for the 124th Boston Marathon, which will take place in Massachusetts, the U.S. on April 20, 2020.

According to the Boston Athletics Association, runners must achieve times corresponding to their age and gender in an IAAF-AIMS accredited outdoor marathon to qualify for the race.

National athlete Le Quang Hoa is in tears after winning at VnExpress Marathon in June 2019. Photo by VnExpress.

The VnExpress Marathon is one of four events in Vietnam to be recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races (AIMS) along with the Long Bien Marathon, Techcombank Marathon and Danang International Marathon. The time for the event in 2020 is yet to be defined.