This year's Wuhan Marathon was to have taken place on April 12, which turned out to be four days after the city's lockdown was lifted. Though the race was canceled, organizers staged an online charity event called Run with Wuhan that attracted more than 390,000 registrations.

For this online event, runners were required to complete a solo run of at least 4.12 km on April 12, recording their performance using any running app. Nearly 70,000 runners across the country took part and compared notes about their performances as well as giving encouragement and congratulations.

Just as the Wuhan online event gave runners plenty of time to reflect on their performances, the epidemic lockdown has given those in the long-distance running industry the chance to think about the direction in which it is headed.

Bao Mingxiao, director of the China Sports Economic Research Center, believes that, as in many other fields, the COVID-19 epidemic has been highly disruptive, but that it has also exposed and magnified some of the sport's deficiencies.

"We should not be content merely to take short-term measures as we react to our present situation, but also make changes to deal with longstanding problems in institutional mechanisms, ensure that we have the ability to deal with unforeseen threats and continue to grow."

Contact the writer at zhanglei@chinadaily.com.cn