TOKYO MARATHON SET OCT.17

Next year's Tokyo Marathon will be held on Oct. 17 instead of March as originally planned, while the 2022 event will be staged five months later on March 6, the Tokyo Marathon Foundation announced Friday.

Due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, this year's race was limited to an elite field of invited runners, but next year's marathon will return to being a mass-participation event with about 38,000 runners, Kyodo News reported.

Organizers had hoped to hold next year's race in March but abandoned that plan in view of the current state of coronavirus infections in Japan and the fact that travel from overseas is still being restricted, making it difficult to organize on its usual scale.

There was also concern that a virus outbreak at the event might negatively impact next summer's rescheduled Tokyo Olympics. Instead, the race will be run after the Olympics are scheduled to be held.

General runners who could not take part this year despite having their entries accepted will be entered in the 2021 or 2022 events.