Sports authorities in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, announces on March 14 at a news briefing that the 2017 Wuxi Marathon will be held on the 19th. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The organizers of the 2017 Wuxi Marathon convened to give a press conference on March 14, five days prior to the weekend race.

As the race's profile grows, an increasing number of professional runners are set to compete with roughly 50 elite athletes from Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Eritrea, Uganda, and Morocco arriving in the Jiangsu province city for the race.

Renowned Chinese runners including Liu Hong, the women's 20 km race walking gold medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and Li Zicheng, the winner of the men's 2015 Wuxi Marathon, will take part in the event.

The Wuxi Marathon offers entrants the options of signing up for full marathon (42.195 km), half marathon (21.095 km), or mini marathon (3.5 km). This range of races allows both professional and amateur runners to take part in the marathon experience.

For the sake of ensuring an enjoyable experience and the safety of runners, race organizers have restricted the number of entrants to 30,000 this year, with 18,000 places allocated for the full marathon, 7,000 for the half marathon, and 5,000 for the mini-marathon.