While China only hosted 22 road running races nationwide in 2011, the Chinese Athletics Association (CAA) reports 328 races and 2.8 million runners in 2018. The number of runners almost doubled last year, with the number of races increasing by more than 10 times in the past five years. The running obsession is mainly fueled by China’s rising middle-class, chasing purpose beyond work, and the rising desire of an enhanced work-life balance. Road running is changing from an exotic hobby for a few brave fitness addicts to a full-fledged national phenomenon. By comparing the road running industry with the US market, where distance running is people’s sport for decades, it shows a mind-blowing opportunity: the US hosts stunning 30.000 races with over 150 million participants each year, still growing. Taking into consideration that China has 4 times the population it is to be expected that hundreds of millions of people are hitting the road, creating a double-digit billion USD market over the next decade.
The exponential rise is gradually shifting the sport-culture of the People’s Republic, but brings challenges too, so is the lack of professional race organization one of the major pain-points holding the country back to scale race events nationwide to serve the exploding demand, as stated by Yu Hongchen from the Chinese Athletics Association (CAA). First-tier races, such as the international Shanghai host up to 38.000 runners, which are selected out of 150.000 applications, which is creating exorbitant ticket prices on the black market for ten or even twenty times the original price. The great irony is that despite the insufficient supply, first-tier city races suffer from a sky-high DNS rate (Did Not Start), according to official figures only 83.7% of the Standard Chartered Hong Marathon 2018 show up. Mainly caused by the first-timer and inexperienced runners, signing-up out of curiosity and as the novelty of the vision wears off dis-engagement kicks-in. In more dramatic cases the runners participate under-trained and over-motivated, which often ends with injuries on race day, as the race day hype is pushing the runners beyond acceptable limits leading to DNF (Do Not Finish) rates far beyond international standards. So reported the local newspaper Qingyuan Daily more than 12,000 first-aid treatment, 10,000 muscle spasms, and 1,700 sprains, with 17 people hospitalized, including five in critical condition. Unacceptable numbers for a race, not only caused by poor knowledge of the participants but also inexperienced organizers scramble to host races. One key challenge is the pre-race engagement with participants, instructing them about basics like the importance of keeping hydrated, the need for sufficient training hours and alarming body signals to be taken care of. Besides the poor organization of many of the marathon events also a scandal of faking finishing time certificates to qualify for in Boston Marathon is an unsolved problem, which shocked the global running community, dishonored the athletes and gives a wrong impression to the millions of honest runners in China.
Despite today’s challenges China is facing on the way to become the world’s largest running population, the government sets a clear direction turning China into a sports superpower and build a culture to catch the running boom and compete with the great marathon races in the United States and Europe. Also as of today the fast growth comes along with many problems and even scandals, we are starting to see how this industry begins to innovate and is using technology to create very localized events with stellar race experience, as an example face recognition helps organizer to intelligently distribute race pictures and to identify participants sings another’s runner identity. And there is so much more potential, it’s just a matter of time to utilize the digital ecosystem in China to re-invent the racing experience from sign-up to the finish line and making China run better, faster and healthier.
