The city of Kyoto is considering including a special interfaith relay race segment to the third annual Kyoto marathon to take place in February 2014.
Kyoto dispatched a city worker to observe the June 2012 interfaith race at the Luxembourg Marathon that saw 50 participants from 11 countries and seven religions taking part. That race garnered plenty of media attention with its high profile runners and sponsors that included the Dalai Lama and the world’s oldest marathon runner, 101-year-old English Sikh, Fauja Singh. The Japan Buddhist Federation is also expressing interest in an interfaith race at next year’s Kyoto marathon.
Officials say they want to hold a long distance race with interfaith teams tied together with threads, with the ultimate goal of promoting world peace and the city of Kyoto. The RocketNews24 team hopes the interfaith race will give rise to similarly themed races. Maybe in 2015 we can look forward to Chinese and Japanese politicians running as one alongside teams of Manchester U and Manchester City fans, and teams of Linux and Windows users (n second thought, that might be a disaster).
Source: Yahoo! Japan Photo 1: Kyoto Travel Guide