Following the spread of the virus, the Ministry of Health has instructed the municipality not to allow international runners to participate in a race this Friday • In the past week they have canceled close to a thousand runners from Asian countries • The registrants' money will be fully refunded

• Tel Aviv Marathon. Only for locals

  Photo:

  Gideon Markovich

The Ministry of Health instructed the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality on Sunday not to allow international runners to participate in the Samsung Tel Aviv marathon, expected this Friday. This is due to the spread of the corona virus.

The Ministry of Health has allowed the municipality to run the marathon as planned for some 40,000 Israeli runners registered to the various teams.

Of all the registered runners, about 3,000 are foreign nationals. In the past week, nearly 1,000 runners from Asian countries to which travel restrictions already apply have canceled their participation, and the Health Ministry has now decided not to allow the participation of the other international runners.

Marathon production officials contacted registrants abroad to inform them of the Ministry of Health's decision. The registrants' money will be fully refunded to them.

It is worth noting that this is not the first major marathon in danger of cancellation in the world lately. The Tokyo Marathon has also been canceled by its organizers for exactly the same reason. If the Tel Aviv Marathon is eventually canceled, the next marathon to be canceled - almost certainly - is the Jerusalem Marathon that is expected to be completed in less than a month.