KUALA LUMPUR, April 9 — The 2020 Borneo International Marathon (BM2020) scheduled for June in Sabah has been cancelled in light of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

BM2020’s organising committee said while this came as a disappointment for both runners who have trained for months and the Sabah charitable bodies they were raising funds for, its top priority was to ensure a safe and healthy environment for everyone involved.

"Given the current situation both locally and nationally, our focus as a nation now is to ‘flatten the curve’ until it reaches a controllable level so we can start to live our lives normally again.

"After deep thinking and careful consideration, the organising committee has decided to cancel the Borneo Marathon 2020 on June 21,” it said in a statement here.

Following the cancellation, the committee said it will now refund all registration fees for BM2020, including fees paid via the Great Borneo Series platform, World’s Marathon platform and under the Combo package.

However it urged participants to remain patient as the secretariat will be busier than usual since it involved combing through the volume of registrations received from various payment gateways, registration portals and the corresponding banking transactions.

"Please bear with us as we detail out and coordinate this carefully so that money paid to us can rightfully be given back to you via online banking.

"An administrative fee of 7 per cent is deducted to carry this out. A Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) link will be provided in due course to address your refund enquiries,” it said.