Beijing Marathon

Beijing Marathon
The National Olympic Sports Centre is the race finishing point
Date	September 17th
Location	Beijing, China
Event type	road
Distance	Marathon
Established	1981
Official site	Beijing International Marathon

The Beijing Marathon (Chinese: 北京马拉松) is an annual marathon race of 42.195 km held in October in Beijing, People's Republic of China. The race was first held in 1981 and has been held every year since. The race begins at Tiananmen Square and finishes at the National Olympic Sports Centre stadium. Beijing Marathon is now a full marathon only marathon race. At the 2009 edition of the race, 4897 runners finished the marathon course, which included 556 women.

The race holds an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, one of three marathons in the People's Republic of China to receive the distinction (along with the Xiamen International Marathon and Shanghai Marathon). It is AIMS-certified course, making it eligible for world record performances. It hosted the Asian Marathon Championship races in 2006.

The 2014 edition of Beijing International Marathon was held on October 19 under intense smog. Many marathoners used face masks and sponges to help their performance.

The Beijing International Marathon has been organized by the Chinese Athletics Association annually since 1981. The creation of the race, which was international in nature from its inception, was part of a wider movement to open up China and its culture to foreign innovations – a change which was led by Deng Xiaoping, who sought to move China away from its Maoist past.

In 1986 Taisuke Kodama of Japan set a men's course record in a time of 2:07:35. Ethiopian runner Abebe Mekonnen equaled this time in 1988 and some commentators (including the Association of Road Racing Statisticians) regard this as the true course record, in respect of reports that the 1986 course was around 400 m short of the marathon distance. In 2003, Sun Yingjie of China set the current women's record of 2:19:38 – this run was an Asian record and the fourth fastest ever at the time, and it remains the Chinese record for the event. The 2005 race served as the marathon for the 2005 National Games of China – Sun Yingjie took the Games gold medal for women while seventh placed Zhang Qingle (18 years old at the time) was the highest placing Chinese man and won the men's Games gold.