In the past 5 years, the Quang Tri marathon movement has developed quite strongly, notably the formation and development of clubs and running groups to create a playground to connect passions as well as participate in many marathon competitions nationwide with impressive results. In particular, starting from 2024, many large-scale, high-quality marathon competitions will be held for the first time right in Quang Tri, gathering good athletes from all over the country to compete. This is a good sign, an important lever to positively impact the marathon movement in the province, gradually making Quang Tri an ideal destination for major marathon competitions nationwide...
Quang Tri has all the elements such as beautiful running routes, scenic spots... to become an ideal destination for marathons - Photo: DC
Races with Quang Tri "identity"
One of the important criteria for successfully and impressively organizing marathons in Quang Tri is that in recent times, the marathon movement here has had strong developments. Many athletes have won high achievements in national marathons. On the other hand, Quang Tri has all the favorable factors in terms of competition routes, scenic spots, historical sites... to be able to directly organize or coordinate to host marathons of national and international scale.
Specifically, on November 3, 2023, the Provincial People's Committee had a working session with the Vietnam Agriculture Newspaper on the coordination of organizing the 2024 Quang Tri Marathon "Journey to the Land of Fire - Quang Tri Marathon". The tournament is expected to take place on June 15 and 16, 2024. This is a national and international tournament gathering 2,000-2,500 athletes, competing in 4 distances: 42.195 km, 12 km, 10 km, 5 km; attracting over 10,000 domestic and foreign tourists; about 400 members of the organizing committee and professional forces participating in the tournament. Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Vietnam Agriculture Newspaper Tran Van Cao said that the goal of this tournament is to create an annual tournament in Quang Tri, contributing to building a healthy lifestyle and improving the health of local people. In addition, the tournament also creates new sports tourism products; contributes to stimulating tourism, promoting the image of people, landscapes, and regional specialties; attracting domestic and foreign tourists to visit; organizing activities to honor heroic martyrs; giving gifts to families of policy beneficiaries and people with meritorious services to the revolution.
Runners of Quang Tri province are enthusiastically practicing for upcoming major races - Photo: DC
Recently, another positive signal came to running enthusiasts, that is, on January 17, 2024, the Provincial People's Committee worked with Tien Phong Newspaper on coordinating the organization of the Tien Phong Newspaper National Marathon and Long Distance Championship. This is the oldest running tournament in Vietnamese sports, part of the official competition system of the Vietnam Athletics Federation. Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Tien Phong Newspaper Vu Tien said that in 2025, the unit wishes to coordinate with Quang Tri province to organize the 66th tournament on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the South and national reunification on April 30 (1975 - 2025).
The tournament is expected to take place in March 2025, gathering a large number of athletes from the national athletics team and excellent athletes from localities, especially more than 6,000 amateur athletes; competing in distances of 5 km, 10 km, 21.1 km and 42.2 km.
This will be a major event, contributing significantly to promoting socio-economic development, tourism development; promoting the image of the land and people of Quang Tri; promoting the development of the sports movement... Through the working sessions, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Hoang Nam agreed with the Vietnam Agriculture Newspaper and Tien Phong Newspaper on hosting the marathon in Quang Tri.
Regarding the tournament time, competition route, ensuring accommodation for athletes; traffic safety, security, order, health... there will be appropriate and effective calculations in the coming time. At the same time, the parties commit to coordinate and create the best conditions to ensure the tournament takes place in an exciting, attractive and impressive manner.
To create a tournament with its own brand, Dong Ha City, in collaboration with VietRace365 Joint Stock Company and Quang Tri Runners Club (QTR), plans to organize the Dong Ha Marathon 2024. The tournament will take place on April 20 and 21, 2024 with 3 distances: 5 km, 10 km and 21 km. Vice Chairman of Dong Ha City People's Committee Ho Si Trong said that after nearly 2 months of implementation, up to now, the tournament has attracted nearly 2,000 athletes nationwide to register to participate.
The Organizing Committee is determined to successfully organize the first tournament, in order to create a premise for the tournament to become an annual traditional activity, thereby promoting the movement of physical training and sports in the city to develop more and more. At the same time, this is also an opportunity to promote the culture, cuisine and tourism of Dong Ha - Quang Tri to friends all over the country.
Creating an image of a friendly and hospitable Dong Ha City, contributing to the development of tourism in the province. With the theme: "Breakthrough journey on the land of fire", through many beautiful roads of Dong Ha City, the tournament promises to bring athletes interesting experiences with many emotions.
Efforts to make a strong move
Since the province and Dong Ha city have had official information about organizing marathons, it has brought much joy to the people of Quang Tri. This shows the deep concern of the leaders of the province, Dong Ha city and related units about sports development; affirming that Quang Tri has enough conditions to organize and coordinate to host national and international competitions. People will have the opportunity to watch and compete right on their homeland and can proudly introduce to friends from all over the world about marathon competitions with Quang Tri's identity.
Athlete Quang Hoa, the pride of Quang Tri marathon - Photo: NVCC
Since the end of 2023, marathon activities in Quang Tri have been quite exciting. From Quang Tri Runners Club, amateur running groups to independent athletes, all have been training hard to participate in the tournament and achieve the expected results. After the tournaments were scheduled, the marathon movement has made strong changes.
QTR Club Vice President Cao Viet Anh shared: “QTR is a place for those who love running, especially marathons, where members can exchange and share knowledge and information related to running and help each other to improve their health, performance and running techniques. The club has had many members participating in marathons nationwide with high results.
However, we always hope to have large-scale races with large playgrounds right in our hometown. Therefore, when we heard that Quang Tri will organize many marathons in the near future, the members of the club were very excited and enthusiastic. Currently, QTR Club has about 130 members registered to participate in the Dong Ha Marathon 2024.
With the slogan: "Burn out for Quang Tri, for a friendly and enthusiastic Quang Tri", QTR members are all enthusiastic in training and eager to show themselves in the Dong Ha Marathon 2024; at the same time, we will actively support athletes from all over the country to participate in the tournament smoothly and have a good impression of Quang Tri land".
The upcoming races in Quang Tri will have the participation of Le Quang Hoa - an athlete who has participated in many marathons nationwide, achieving many impressive results such as first prizes at: Hue marathon 2019, Mixed Relay Team Ironman 70.3 VietNam 2019, VNExpress Marathon 2019, Longbien Marathon 2019 and recently, he won the 21 km championship of District 1 Midnight Run 2023.
Mr. Hoa said: “As a son of Quang Tri, I feel proud when hearing that my hometown is hosting major competitions. Currently, Quang Tri has many brothers and sisters who are runners, so hosting a national competition will create more motivation and attract more people to the sport of running, helping the running community become stronger. I will register to participate in marathons in my hometown, with the determination to achieve the highest results, together with athletes to create a strong change for the Quang Tri marathon.”
Hoai Diem Chi
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