China's capital city Beijing will embrace the 2016 International Marathon on September 17th.

This time, the event has attracted over 60 thousand marathoners, but only half of them will be able to participate in the race, as the race has a maximum capacity of just 30,000 runners. The slots were decided by a lottery, which excluded half of those who want to take part. The winners of the draw have been announced on a list of final participants in early August.

With the event just around the corner, a Beijing Newspaper recently reported that Marathon quotas were offered for sale online with prices ranging from 200 to 1000 yuan.

A senior runner surnamed He, told the Newspaper that runners who had participated in previous races, have relatively better chances at being selected in the draw. This leads many newcomers to try to buy spots from others.

A marathon staffer also said the registrations for this year's race have broken the record for China with a total of 66,576 people registering for the event. The lottery win rate for those without any experience in previous marathons stands at just 20%.

The organizing committee of the Beijing Marathon has already stipulated in their competition regulations, that both sellers and buyers of marathon quotas will face a

life-time ban from the event if they get caught.

The staffer also said in order to prevent this, all the participants need to show their IDs before collecting their marathon gear. The committee purchases insurance for each runner which will not apply to those who bought their spots, in the event of race related traumas.

Source: english.cri.cn