China will ban marathon cheats for life to clamp down on scandals that have dogged the fast-growing sport, which attracted three million participants nationwide last year.

The Chinese Athletics Association (CAA) said in a statement late on Monday that people who run under false names or cheat in other ways, such as replacing a runner with another person during the race or having more than one identifying PIN chip, will be immediately banned.

First-time offenders will receive a lifetime ban from the race in question. A second offense will result in a lifetime suspension from all Chinese marathons.

The December death of a runner in a half-marathon in the east Chinese city of Xiamen, Fujian province, threw the spotlight on distance-race cheating in China.

After a man surnamed Wu had a heart attack and died 4.5 kilometers from the finish line, it was discovered he was running on someone else's behalf.

Organizers later disqualified 30 of the 18,000 entrants.

Wu's family last month filed a 1.2 million yuan ($174,000) lawsuit against the race organizers and the person who enlisted him to run in their place.

The lawsuit claims organizers failed to notice Wu running with a different colored female bib, reported the Beijing Youth Daily.

An incentive to cheat, said the paper, was that high-school students had been told they could earn credits towards university entrance examinations if they finished in the top 100 places in the race.

Reasons to cheat in other events could be the lure of big prize money or the desire to show off on social media with a finisher's certificate, despite having had someone else run the race.

Long-distance running has become hugely popular in China since the country's first marathon was held in Beijing in 1981.

In 2016, 2.8 million people participated in 328 marathons in 133 Chinese cities, the CAA said, an increase of 150 percent over the previous year.

The number of races is expected to hit 500 this year.

CAA vice-president Du Zhaocai said on Monday that China aims to promote healthy lifestyles by holding 800 marathons by 2020, involving more than 10 million runners.

"The committees should take substitution as a severe problem and we call on all runners to bear the spirit of sportsmanship and run with honesty," he said.

Agence France-Presse