22 Feb 2014

Sport: Weather forces changes to Moorea Marathon

7:25 am on 22 February 2014

A run of bad weather has forced a change of course for the 26th edition of the Moorea Marathon in French Polynesia.

Competitors from as far away as the United States, Europe and Japan will line up this weekend with distances ranging from the full 42 kilometres to an 800 metre dash.

One of the organisers of the event, Angela Tom Sing Vien, says preparations have not gone smoothly.

"We changed the course. It used to be at the public beach of Te Maa but when we had the bad weather about two weeks ago so the road was quite damaged. The welcoming site in te Maa is not very appropriate to organise the marathon so we changed everything and everything is happening on Cooks Bay. All of us are stressed by [we will] try to get everything ready by tomorrow and then the races can start."

About 120 competitors will compete in the full marathon with hundreds more across the other distances.