Once a niche hobby and the preserve of professional athletes, running marathons has become a fun new trend in China, for the experienced runners and the amateurs alike. Tens of thousands of Chinese have adopted marathon running as an active part of their life. Even better, now Chinese amateur runners have the chance to run in the Tokyo Olympics. 

The Chinese Athletics Association (CAA) announced Monday at the 2016 China marathon annual conference in Shanghai that two amateur runners will be selected to take part in the marathon race of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

The CAA released a plan called "Run for Olympics" that reserves two qualifying berths for amateurs, one male and one female runner.

There are two ways for amateurs to join the "Run for Olympics" selection. First, all the male runners running faster than 2:19:00 and female runners with results better than 2:45:00 are welcome to participate, according to standards of International Association Of Athletics Federations (IAAF). 

Second, the top 10 runners in both men’s and women’s group of IAAF golden label races also have the chance to fight for the Olympics berths. China has now four golden label races, Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen and Dongying. All the results and rankings from 2017 to 2020 will be taken into consideration.

"I believe the plan will encourage many runners to run for their best and it will attract more people to join the sport," said Du Zhaocai, the CAA vice president.

Any professional athlete registering in CAA will not be included in the selection plan.

(With inputs from Xinhua)