THE Shenzhen Nanshan Half Marathon, scheduled for Dec. 15, will raise its participation cap from 16,000 to 20,000 runners this year, according to a Tuesday announcement on the organizing committee’s WeChat account. Registration for the event will begin soon, and slots will be allocated by lottery.

To encourage broader participation, the organizing committee has introduced three categories that allow runners to directly enter and bypass the lottery. The first category includes elite runners who achieved a net time of 1 hour 25 minutes or less for men and 1 hour 50 minutes or less for women in the 2023 Shenzhen Nanshan Half Marathon.

The second includes those who completed the marathon between 2017 and 2019, successfully registered in 2022, and finished the 2023 event.

The third category includes those who completed the race from 2015 to 2019, registered successfully in 2022, and completed last year’s race.

(Han Ximin)