Oriental promise for BMW Malta Marathon

One of the more welcome features of this year's BMW Malta Marathon was a group of Japanese and South Korean fans near the finishing line at Sliema, all shouting their encouragement to the athletes running home.

Contrary to most other tourists who made their way to The Ferries last Sunday, their presence wasn't accidental but rather the result of a lot of hard work to attract runners from those two far-away Asian countries to Malta.

Indeed, this year's marathon saw the participation of ten Japanese - of whom Raku Tsuruishi managed to finish 10th overall in the full marathon in 2:45.36 - and four South Koreans. Among the latter there was a representative of tour.net, one of the leading sports tour operators in Asia. They are looking to channel their efforts into bringing more tourists here, specifically for the marathon.

"We have been promoting the Malta Marathon very strongly in Japan for many years," the Malta Tourism Authority's representative in Japan, Shingo Endo, told The Times.

"Every year we have made a marathon tour to Malta from Japan. This year we have 10 runners from Japan.

"We have also started to promote Malta in Korea from last year and we had four runners from that country in Malta as well."

Both Asian countries have a rich tradition in long distance running and the sport's popularity is on the increase.

Maruta... Malta tie

At the last New York Marathon there were thousands of Japanese athletes while the most recent Tokyo Marathon attracted over 90,000 runners.

And while the competition from the world's leading marathons is tough, Malta is slowly making headway into this market.

Especially if there are more athletes like Satoshi Maruta who provided one of the more original reasons for running in the BMW Malta Marathon.

"His surname is Maruta and in Japan we pronounce Malta as Maruta," Endo explained.

"He is a University student who is graduating this year and, given work commitments, he won't be able to train as regularly in the near future.

"He chose Malta for his last run which means that a Japanese runner whose name is Malta took part in the Malta Marathon this year."

Maruta was 18th in the full marathon last Sunday. He covered the 26-mile distance in 2:57.22.