A few hundred foreigners yesterday lined up in Kim Il-sung Stadium for the Pyongyang Marathon, less than half of last year’s contingent as Western tourism to North Korea has been battered by nuclear tensions and a US travel ban.
A packed crowd in the 47,000-capacity arena cheered and applauded before the runners streamed out of the stadium beneath portraits of North Korea’s founder and his son and successor Kim Jong-il.
The event — part of the celebrations for the anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birth in 1912 — is normally the annual peak for Western tourism to the isolated country, offering visitors the chance to run or jog through the streets of Pyongyang.
Photo: AFP
However, fears of conflict reached fresh heights last year as the North made rapid progress in its nuclear and missile ambitions under Kim Jong-un, the third member of the Kim dynasty to rule.
Several new sets of UN Security Council sanctions were imposed, and in September Washington effectively banned US citizens from visiting following the death of tourist Otto Warmbier, while several other countries stepped up their travel warnings.
A total of 429 foreign amateurs entered the Pyongyang Marathon this year, compared with more than 1,000 in 2017.
Two North Korean twin sisters, Kim Hye-gyong and Kim Hye-song, yesterday took first and second in the women’s race, matching each other stride for stride and gesture for gesture as they came up the finishing straight, the younger of the 25-year-olds crossing the line less than a meter ahead.
Local runners also filled the first three places in the men’s race, with the first invited elite competitor, a Moroccan, trailing in fourth and observers suggesting the cold conditions — in the single degrees Celsius — did not favor African runners.
Australian Tracy Britten, who ran the 10km race, said doing so was “surreal.”
“You just don’t know what to expect, so here you are in the streets of Pyongyang running around, people are giving you a high five and it’s just an incredible experience,” she said.
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