Many of the runners and spectators at the Boston Marathon were from other countries.

[pampango]

A female Chinese citizen was among at least 140 people injured by explosions at the Boston Marathon on Monday afternoon, China’s state newswire Xinhua reported amid an outpouring of sympathy from the country’s internet users, writes Jonathan Kaiman in Beijing.

The Chinese victim - Zhou Danling, a student at Boston University - is comatose and receiving treatment at a local hospital, according to the report. She graduated from Wuhan University in central China and is reading a graduate degree in actuarial science, according to an article on the popular news portal Sina.com.

At least 85 people from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan participated in the race, none of them professional runners.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-news-blog/2013/apr/16/boston-marathon-explosions-hunt-begins-for-perperators-live-updates

I suppose the terrorists in this case are happy that people in many countries will feel a direct impact from the events in Boston because they have fellow nationals who were participating in the race.

[hobbit709]

1. The clowns that do this kind of crap could care less where anyone is from.

the more shock value the better is their way of thinking.

[Recursion]

2. BU is right there, and has a *huge* international student population

I did my Masters there and at least in the college of engineering the majority of my classmates were international students. My old office from when I was a TA is just on the other side of the Mass Ave overpass... I don't like to think about that.

[undeterred]

3. An eight year old boy was killed

and someone talked about carrying a five year old who had lost both her legs to an ambulance. How horrible.

[pampango]

4. "It is the one day ... when the city is its most ­diverse ... people from so many other countries ..

The Marathon is the city’s signature event, a tangible link with the rest of the world. It is one of the few things that ­allows us to cling to that pretense of Boston being the Hub of the universe. Patriots Day is a celebration of our revolutionary history, but we share it with the world. It is the one day of the year when the city is its most ­diverse, with people from so many other countries here to run those 26 miles from ­Hopkinton to the Back Bay.

And so it was alternately poignant and horrifying to watch as first responders frantically pulled metal barriers and the flags of so many different countries down into Boylston Street in a desperate rush to get to the dead and the injured on the sidewalk.

Those flags looked like victims, splayed on Boylston Street as the acrid smoke hung in the air.

Before 3 p.m., the medical tent at the finish line had seen nothing worse than a blister. Then, in an instant, it was transformed into a battlefield triage unit. Doctors and nurses who had been running the race in turn raced to the medical tent and volunteered their ­services, still sweating, still wearing their running gear. People in the Back Bay opened their homes to runners who couldn’t get back to their ­hotels.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/15/perfect-day-turns-evil/W7KQHq1NWFqukte3VQ14DJ/story.html