South Korea’s top athletics official said Wednesday he is open to awarding foreign-born marathon runners South Korean citizenship to help make the sport more competitive here.

Oh Dong-jin, the chairman of the Korea Association of Athletic Federations, said naturalizing foreign nationals could help turn things around for South Korean marathon.

“I’ve had extensive discussions with experts in the field on how to revive marathon,” Oh said. “To help improve our national record, giving South Korean citizenship to foreign-born athletes is considered an option.”

Oh first became the KAAF chairman in 2009, and the former Samsung Electronics executive is largely expected to be reelected to his second term on Jan. 30.

During his first term, South Korean athletics fizzled at a handful of major international events, including at the 2011 World Athletics Championships in the South Korean city of Daegu, where the host country failed to grab any medal.

South Korea once thrived in marathon and produced the Olympic champion Hwang Young-cho in 1992 and the Olympic silver-medalist Lee Bong-ju in 1996. Since the turn of the millennium, however, younger runners have not been able to match the feats of their predecessors. (Yonhap News)