Abstract

Objective: Public interest in marathons has been rising since the Chinese government issued the Outline for Building a powerful Sports Country. The purpose of this study is to analyze the recent trends of public interest in marathon and related online search behavior in the context of this construction outline, and to make a forecast analysis of the future development of marathon events. Methods: Baidu Index, a massive search engine database, was used in this study. By searching the keyword marathon, analyze the data related to marathon. This study also extracted the search trend data of Chinese netizens for terms related to national fitness and sports power from September 2, 2011 to March 31, 2024. Finally, public search interest in marathons was compared with search trends for related terms. Results: In recent years, people’s attention to marathon shows an increasing trend year by year. The specific performance is that the search index of related keywords continues to grow, and the search volume has increased significantly. The peak value appears in May 2021, the trough value appears around the Spring Festival every year, the search index is relatively high from September to November every year, and the search trend in other periods is stable. Conclusion: Increased public interest in marathons is likely to lead to an increase in the number of people preparing to run marathons in all provinces and regions of the country. In the future, under the influence of the “Sports Power Construction Outline” and the National Fitness Action Plan, with the in-depth promotion of the strategy of sports power and the continuous development of marathon events, people’s attention to marathon events, health and physical exercise is expected to sustainable growth.

Keywords: Sports power, Marathon, Public attention, Baidu index, Search engine