Zhengzhou Marathon Bans Runner Who Tied a 9-Year-Old Boy to His Waist

The Zhengzhou Marathon has banned a runner for three years and thrown out his result after he ran its Oct. 18 race with a 9-year-old boy tied to him by a rope around the waist, a child who was half the age of the youngest runner the event allows.

Clips of the pair have been passed around Douyin and other Chinese platforms since race day. In them, the man runs a stride or two ahead with the rope stretched out behind him, and the boy is at the other end of it, keeping pace as best he can. A runner who passed them wrote that the boy was only 9 and was out there with his father, though organizers have not named the man.

Five days after the race, a member of the organizing committee confirmed the penalty to Jiupai News. By then much of the anger online had turned on the race itself, with people asking how a child had made it onto the course at all. The official did not say whether the ban stops at Zhengzhou or applies to other races under the Chinese Athletics Association.

How far the boy went is still unclear. The South China Morning Post reported that the pair were in the half-marathon, and runners posting online put their pace at around eight minutes per mile. Over 13.1 miles that comes out at about 1:45, a time plenty of adult club runners would be pleased with. The organizers, though, have not said which race the man entered or whether the boy reached the finish.

A Child Well Outside Every Age Limit

Either way, he should never have been there. Under Zhengzhou’s 2026 rules, full marathon entrants have to be at least 20 and half-marathon entrants at least 18, so the boy was short of the lower limit by nine years. The rules also warn that the marathon is long, hard and risky.

China sets its bar a little higher than most, but no federation would clear a 9-year-old to race a half-marathon. UK Athletics rules cap road distances by age group, keeping under-13s to 5K and the marathon closed until 18. Athletics Australia’s FIT model recommends at least 18 for the marathon and 17 or 18 for the half. Where races set no minimum, children do turn up: 10-year-old Linden Meza ran the full Blue Nose Marathon in Halifax with his father last year, and a 7-year-old covered most of the 2023 Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati without a bib.

Chinese outlets have resurfaced earlier comments from two doctors to the People’s Daily health service. Guo Jianjun, a professor at the Capital University of Physical Education and Sports, warned that growing bones are prone to fractures over long distances. Chen Xueli, who heads rehabilitation medicine at Beijing Shijitan Hospital, pointed out that children shed heat less well than adults, that their hearts are still developing, and that a young child is poorly equipped to handle an emergency in a big field.

Similar Cases in Taiyuan and Wuyuan

Taiyuan had dealt with something similar only three weeks earlier. At its marathon on Sept. 27, a runner surnamed Yuan let a minor wear his race number and took the child out on the course, and organizers canceled the result and banned him from their race for two years.

A case in Wuyuan, in Jiangxi province, in December 2024 was harder still to watch. A father who dropped out exhausted let his daughter go on with his bib, and according to HK01, she was 6. Referees tried more than once to pull her off the course, and her father kept getting in their way until officials finally stopped her near the finish. He was also banned for three years, and the Wuyuan organizers sent the case on to the Chinese Athletics Association.

In January, a man was taken off the Hong Kong Marathon course after running about 15K with a baby, as Marathon Handbook reported at the time. Races across the region have leaned hard on bans and disqualifications to keep fields in line, from the bib transfers and gel hoarding at Chengdu in March to the wrong-bib disqualifications at the 2025 Hong Kong Marathon. Zhengzhou, which was hoping for 25,000 runners this year, has not said whether it will send this case to the national federation as Wuyuan did.