Several marathons in major cities have abandoned foreign brands that had incited outrage on Chinese social media for their discriminating stance against Xinjiang's cotton, including Adidas and ASICS.
The organizers have replaced the brands with local ones as the provider of the runners' resources such as T-shirts, according to several sources familiar with the matter.
Shanghai Half Marathon, scheduled on Sunday, which had originally appointed Adidas as the provider of the players' resources, told its players on Wednesday that there will be no costume issued at this event.
Volunteers and players of the Xi'an Marathon, which is due on Saturday, that the organizer has replaced one of their brand partners ASICS with Xtep, a Chinese sportswear brand.
ASICS was also ditched by Wuxi Marathon, which was held in Wuxi of East China's Jiangsu Province on April 11.
According to a statement released on its official account on April 1 by Hui Pao, a Chinese sports operating company and the organizer of the Wuxi marathon, has decided to terminate its cooperation with ASICS in the event, cancel its advertising rights and stop using all the materials and products of the brand.
Although none of the event organizers gave the specific reasons for replacing Adidas and ASICS, it is widely speculated that it's due to the companies' statements that they will not source cottons from Xinjiang.
