National Fitness, a slogan with a long history, is now touted by more and more media. Marathon, as an attainable sport for the masses, gets more and more popular in China. There are many more participants than the athletes in the Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou Marathons. In the meantime a colour run, an undie run and a women’s run have just sprung up.

The USA held the first towerrun on the Empire State Building, New York in 1978, which was seen as the start of vertical marathon. Actually in 1905, another tower, the world-famous Eiffel Tower hosted the first ever event. However in China, Vertical Marathon is just a newcomer and developing in its own way. Being different from other sports, vertical marathon in China has a wider meaning, apart from that of a sport. As city centres grow, the price of real estate soars. Therefore a sport which needs less space is desirable.

From 2014, the International Vertical Marathon started to spread nationwide. The series covers five big cities in China. Thousands of athletes have experienced this interesting and competitive event. Not only the top athletes in China, but also many overseas competitors have taken part in the events.

The attraction is two fold. Firstly, the promotion of the events has been successful. Since the venue is located in the downtown, it is relatively easy to catch people’s attention. For instance, the Final of the 2015 Vertical Marathon was held at Guangzhou Tower on Dec 26th, 2015. After the athletes climbed to the top and took pictures of the wonderful scenery with their smart phones, the vertical marathon was shown to the world.

Secondly, the sponsors of the Vertical Marathon Series are influential. PEAK and DongFeng Venucia are big names in China. Venucia,in particular, as the shirt sponsor of Guangzhou Evergrande, treat the vertical marathon as another arrow in their quiver. The Deputy Head of Business Development, Li Guangtao said that the office workers, who are also the target customers of Venucia, are fond of an event like vertical marathon. The spirit of lowering carbon emissions through vertical marathon meets that of Venucia.

In the future, Vertical Marathon will cover the main cities in China. Moreover, they will cover more downtown sports, such as P.K.O.(football in a cage). The Vertical Marathon Series is going to explore urban sports and design more sports for office staff.

Proofread by John Devlin