Tokyo is promoting its bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games by hosting the inaugural Tokyo Marathon 2007.
According to the Japan Times, Tokyo is eager to promote itself as a city capable of handling large-scale sports events and will launch Asia’s biggest marathon Sunday with 30,000 runners participating.
The event is so popular that the metro government and its co-organizer, Japan Association of Athletics Federations, had to draw lots among the 95,000 applicants.
