A.A. Gordievskikh¹
Dr. Med. T.A. Shilko^1
1National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk

Keywords: running community, COVID-19, healthy lifestyle, motivation, social institute, sports, Tomsk International Marathon, questionnaire survey.

Background. Modern world of sports has developed a wide range of popular amateur and professional associations including sports clubs, sport schools, sports interest communities and other social tools and institutions geared to motivate people for sports, enrich their lifestyles with sporting interests and change their health agendas. The ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic since the early 2020 has forced most of the world nations to protect public health by multiple restrictions and lockdowns of many social services and businesses including fitness clubs, sports facilities, traditional tournaments and other public events, with a wide range of negative consequences for professional and amateur sports and athletic training systems and services. Sporting communities since then haму made attempts to respond to the crisis by special systemic service models for athletes to keep up the training process and competitions wherever possible.

Objective of the study was to analyze benefits of the traditional Tomsk International Marathon model to keep up the running community’s competitive motivations in the global health crisis period.

Results and discussion. Tomsk is one of the 13 largest cities in the Asian Russia that has hosted, since 2018, the Tomsk International Marathon in compliance with the AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Races) and WA (World Athletics) rules, with a special contribution from the local running community. The Tomsk International Marathon is ranked among the top five marathons in Russia, with the Tomsk International Marathon running community estimated at 7100 runners as of early 2020 – that is a great progress since 2018 when the local running community reported only 200 athletes [5, 6]: see Table 1.

Table 1. Tomsk International Marathon: 2014-17 qualification statistics

Note that since the Tomsk International Marathon running community launched its mass physical training and sports initiatives with a special priority to the running sports promotion aspects, the local running community has grown up 35 times to 7100 people [6]: see Table 2.

Table 2. Tomsk International Marathon: 2014-19 qualification statistics

Therefore, the local organized running community has clearly encouraged the popular inflow to the sport, although the progress was stalled since the early 2020 by the global pandemic and the resultant economic crisis. A questionnaire survey in March 2020 of 1000 Tomsk International Marathon running community members found 87% of the sample seriously unmotivated for habitual trainings due to the stalled competitions; and 93% reported being unfamiliar with the potential online competitive options: see Table 3.

Table 3. Questionnaire survey of the Tomsk International Marathon running community sample in March 2020

Based the questionnaire survey data, the Tomsk International Marathon running community has taken active physical education and sports promotion initiatives with a special emphasis on the health and physical fitness benefits of the habitual trainings rather than competitions only [ 3, 4, 8]. As a result, a new questionnaire survey in May 2020 of 1000 running community members found only 17% still unmotivated for habitual trainings and 87% willing to compete online: see Table 4.

Table 4. Questionnaire survey of the Tomsk International Marathon running community sample in May 2020

Therefore, the new questionnaire survey proved progress of the Tomsk International Marathon running community sport encouragement initiatives and a potential demand for an international online race. The event called Grand Prix attracted 1050 virtual competitors from all over the planet, with the actual competitors registered on the start of the event estimated at 95% of the applicant pool versus 80% typical for the offline races.

Conclusion. Since the modern sports remain one of the key elements of the modern healthy lifestyles, we have reasons to believe that in the crisis periods (1) sports offer a powerful toolkit to encourage the human resource mobilizing, development and healthy lifestyle popularizing initiatives; (2) sports communities in their social dimensions may be highly effective in changing popular attitudes to the sporting lifestyles with their habitual training agendas; and (3) running communities may take leadership in the crisis periods to motivate people for new forms of competitions including the online ones, to successfully cope with the challenges of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns.

References

1. Bleer A.N., Suslov F.P., Tyshler D.A. Sports terminology. Explanatory dictionary reference. Moscow: Akademiya publ., 2010. 464 p.
2. Voroshin I. Cross-country types of athletics. Teaching aid. St. Petersburg, 2008. 30 p.
3. Izaak S.I. International communications in scientific educational environment. Nauchnye issledovaniya i razrabotki. Sovremennaya kommunikativistika. 2017. v. 6. No. 2. pp. 35-40.
4. Izaak S.I. Status of physical development and physical fitness of children, adolescents, youth based on population monitoring technology (case study of the Russian Federation) Izvestiya vuzov Kyrgyzstana. 2016. No.. 9. pp. 153-156.
5. Official site Russian portal of amateur running [Electronic resource]. Available at: https://probeg.org// (date of access: 15.02.2020).
6. Official site of the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races [Electronic resource]. Available at: http://aims-worldrunning.org/aims.html (date of access: 15.06.2019).
7. Parshikova N.V., Izaak S.I., Kovalenko G.V. Sport in global coordinate system: new challenges and opportunities. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. 2017. no.  7. pp.  94-96.
8. Kholodov Zh.K., Kuznetsov V.S. Theory and methodology of physical education and sports. Study guide for stud. higher. study. institutions. 2nd ed., Rev., Sup.. Moscow: Akademiya publ., 2003. 480 p.

Corresponding author: info@go-run.club

Abstract

Objective of the study was to analyze benefits of the traditional Tomsk International Marathon model to keep up the running community’s competitive motivations in the global health crisis period.

Methods and structure of the study. Tomsk is one of the 13 largest cities in the Asian Russia that has hosted, since 2018, the Tomsk International Marathon in compliance with the AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Races) and WA (World Athletics) rules, with a special contribution from the local running community. The Tomsk International Marathon is ranked among the top five marathons in Russia, with the Tomsk International Marathon running community estimated at 7100 runners as of early 2020.

Results and discussion. Since the modern sports remain one of the key elements of the modern healthy lifestyles, we have reasons to believe that in the crisis periods (1) sports offer a powerful toolkit to encourage the human resource mobilizing, development and healthy lifestyle popularizing initiatives; (2) sports communities in their social dimensions may be highly effective in changing popular attitudes to the sporting lifestyles with their habitual training agendas; and (3) running communities may take leadership in the crisis periods to motivate people for new forms of competitions including the online ones, to successfully cope with the challenges of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns.