LANZHOU, June 1 (Xinhua) -- 85.33% Chinese cities held marathon races last year, attracting 5.83 million participants in marathon races and related events, vice president of The Chinese Athletics Association (CAA) Wang Nan revealed during the IAAF Global Running Conference held in Lanzhou.

"By the end of 2018, 1581 marathons and related road running events had been held in China. 31 provinces, autonomous regions and 285 prefecture-level cities in China have held different forms of marathons and road running events," said Yu Hongchen, vice president of CAA.

The expanding urban coverage of marathon events in China is accompanied by the improvement of the event organization.

"Road running events, especially marathons, have been rapidly popularized in China, becoming the new fashion in sports for mass fitness. A number of high-standard and high-quality events have emerged in China," said Yu.

According to Wang, China has successfully applied for 19 IAAF label events, including 9 gold label events to date, ranking top in the world in terms of the number of gold label events and the total number of label events.

"Road running has become an important carrier to promote mass fitness and carry forward sports culture. We are willing to work with other countries to seize the opportunity brought by the IAAF Global Running Conference this year, continuing further cooperation in marathon and road running. " said Yu.