Slow robot marathon starts in Japan

The world's first robot marathon has started in Osaka... Slowly.

Five competing robots will run 422 times around an indoor race track located in Osaka's Asia Pacific Trade Centre.

Of the contestants, two of the robots owned by race organiser Vstone, got off to the best start.

Vstone chief executive officer Yamato Nobuo was reasonably confident of victory and tentatively predicted his robots would finish the race on Saturday morning.

"At the latest they will finish on Sunday morning," he conceded.

Nobuo hopes that in the future the marathon will turn into an international competition similar in scale to the Robo Cup.