North Korea has cancelled the Pyongyang marathon for unspecified reasons, a tour agency linked to the event has said.
British-owned Koryo Tours, which describes itself as the official partner of the marathon, said on Monday that it had received notice of the cancellation from North Korea's athletics association.
A message it attributed to the association said the marathon was being cancelled "due to some reasons".
The annual event was established in 1981 to celebrate the birth of North Korea's founding leader Kim Il Sung. The 2026 race was set to take place on 5 April.
North Korea has cancelled the Pyongyang marathon for unspecified reasons, a tour agency linked to the event has said.
British-owned Koryo Tours, which describes itself as the official partner of the marathon, said on Monday that it had received notice of the cancellation from North Korea's athletics association.
A message it attributed to the association said the marathon was being cancelled "due to some reasons".
The annual event was established in 1981 to celebrate the birth of North Korea's founding leader Kim Il Sung. The 2026 race was set to take place on 5 April.
The smog filled skies from Chinese coal burning power plants shown in the picture makes a good case for not holding this event any longer.
I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un named the winner anyway.
They plan on getting a sub two hour thon next year. They had to postpone because the pace dogs are too full from record insubordination in the hermit kingdom.
I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un named the winner anyway.
Although he is a good buddy & comrade of mine, I would be winning piggly this year if the marathon takes place. Just like I have won so many golf tournaments.
North Korea has cancelled the Pyongyang marathon for unspecified reasons, a tour agency linked to the event has said.
British-owned Koryo Tours, which describes itself as the official partner of the marathon, said on Monday that it had received notice of the cancellation from North Korea's athletics association.
A message it attributed to the association said the marathon was being cancelled "due to some reasons".
The annual event was established in 1981 to celebrate the birth of North Korea's founding leader Kim Il Sung. The 2026 race was set to take place on 5 April.
Cancelled due to lack of entries. Fine print states that failure to complete is not an option and will result in the death penalty.
In all seriousness, I did this marathon back in 2015 (when I was young and dumb). It was certainly an interesting experience. They only had water and bananas at the 2 aid stations. Ran foreigners separately from the domestic elites. Finished in a fully packed Kim-Il-Sung National Stadium with the crowd doing coordinated chants. By far the most bizarre experience of my life.
In all seriousness, I did this marathon back in 2015 (when I was young and dumb). It was certainly an interesting experience. They only had water and bananas at the 2 aid stations. Ran foreigners separately from the domestic elites. Finished in a fully packed Kim-Il-Sung National Stadium with the crowd doing coordinated chants. By far the most bizarre experience of my life.
Dont leave us hanging, we need more details about this pls!
In all seriousness, I did this marathon back in 2015 (when I was young and dumb). It was certainly an interesting experience. They only had water and bananas at the 2 aid stations. Ran foreigners separately from the domestic elites. Finished in a fully packed Kim-Il-Sung National Stadium with the crowd doing coordinated chants. By far the most bizarre experience of my life.
Dont leave us hanging, we need more details about this pls!
Dont leave us hanging, we need more details about this pls!
For real, that sounds interesting
Happy to share! Always a good ice-breaker to talk about this experience. So I did this in 2015 which I believe was the first year they opened the event up to foreigners. As someone else mentioned above, it's been TikTok-ified in recent years so the experience may be a bit different. We flew in from Beijing and there were ~250 foreigners who signed up (mostly Europeans, a handful of Americans). Some interesting bits that still stand out to this day:
- Every foreigner stayed at the same hotel which is on effectively an island on a river, so kind of Alcatraz-esque. They told us as soon as we got there not to go to the 2nd floor of the hotel. No explanation, just told us not to do it - maybe some psychological game? My understanding is that a few months later was when the UVA kid Otto Warmbier got detained there the reason was that he ventured to the forbidden 2nd floor.
- The race was pretty barren in terms of amenities and was a 6.5 mile loop that we went through 4 times. Running under the giant "Peace Arch" was pretty cool and we probably got to see more of the the city than any other tourists. Finishing in the Kim-Il-Sung National stadium was pretty cool - it was packed with 50,000+ Koreans doing coordinated chants. They were probably forced to be there.
- I finished second in the foreigner division (242, absolutely fell apart after coming through 20 at 2hrs). Got to go up in the middle of the stadium on a podium and received an ornamental vase and 2 pretty cool propaganda posters. I have them in my office but my wife hates them.
- After the marathon we went on a weeklong heavily propagandized tour of the country. Like "here is a factory that shows you how industrious North Koreans are." One of the weirder places we went was to a local indoor water park to see how "North Koreans spent their leisure time." At the entrance to the park was a life-sized statute of Kim Jong-Il wearing a Hawaiian shirt and holding a surfboard; we had to bow to it before entering. I had to refrain from laughing as to not show disrespect, but it was bizarre.
- We were specifically asked to bring cigarettes for our tour guides, so I loaded up on Marlboros and was chain-smoking with the tour guide/minders for the rest of the trip. This was when I was 25 so thought it was cool.
-Another bizarre side-trip was to the national film-making studio. Apparently Kim-Il-Sung had kidnapped from South Korea his favorite film-maker back in the 1960s or something. My tour guide said he loved Fast and Furious movies; unfortunately this was shortly after Paul Walker died so I had to break the bad news to him.
- We went to an elementary school one day and the art/playgrounds/etc were so militarized in theme - it was bizarre. Pictures of missiles all on the walls and the playground was all toy tanks, planes, etc. So they instill the militarized society propaganda from an early age.
I have lots of pictures and can look to find a way to share if folks are interested.
