About 18,500 runners from 110 countries and regions, along with nearly 40 elite runners, will join the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon on Sunday.

They are among the 74,000 runners in total who will participate in the annual event.

At a press briefing on Monday, police said road closures would be implemented starting at 11.30pm on Saturday to make way for the full and half marathons which start at Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui.

The 10-kilometre race begins at the Island Eastern Corridor, while the 10-kilometre wheelchair race starts at Wan Chai Sports Ground.

All affected roads are expected to reopen by 2pm on competition day.

Eight MTR lines will begin operating earlier than usual, while 28 special bus routes will be set up for runners to travel to the starting points that day.

Participants can head to the marathon expo to collect the runners' packs between Wednesday and Saturday at Kai Tak Arena.

Kwan Kee, chairman of the Hong Kong, China Association of Athletics Affiliates (HKAAA) and the organising committee of the event said they will ensure a fair competition is held.

"Before the competition, we have one provision of checking the [names] and the number bibs in the expo, so that the runners can check their identities and make sure they put the right number bibs and timing chips with him [or her]," he said.

"We don't encourage any kind of cheating in our competitions. If these things happen, we will follow it seriously and we will do [it] according to the international rules."

The Observatory expects temperatures to range between 17 and 22 degrees on Sunday, and the relative humidity to range from 55 to 80 percent.