The Almaty akimat has announced that 16,000 participants from more than 60 countries will take part in the anniversary Almaty Marathon on September 27. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
Foreign participants
According to the akimat, foreign runners are expected from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, China, South Korea, the USA, the UK and other countries. The participants traveling the farthest will come from Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Auckland, Sydney, Cape Town, Vancouver and Toronto.
Guest of the marathon
The guest of the marathon will be Japanese runner Yuki Kawauchi, the winner of the 2018 Boston Marathon. He will visit Kazakhstan for the first time and will run 42.2 km, the akimat's statement says.
New routes
The department also noted that the routes for all distances have been updated for the race. The marathon course will be run in a single loop for the first time: the start is at Abai Square, and the finish is at Republic Square.
Registration for the 42.2 km and 21.1 km distances continues on the marathon's official website.
Earlier, Kursiv wrote that at the very beginning of September, free running training sessions were launched in Almaty for everyone.