Lagos City Marathon, Okpekpe 10km road race yet to be listed on World Athletics’ 2025 calendar
The Lagos City Marathon and the Okpekpe international 10km road race are yet to be listed on the 2025 World Athletics’ Label Road Races calendar.
While the former has a February 15 date on its website, www.lagoscitymarathon.com, the latter is yet to pick a date for the historic 10km race usually held every May since 2013.
Both the Lagos City Marathon and the Okpekpe international 10km road races are the two World Athletics Label Road races in Nigeria with Gold Label status.
According to the 2025 World Athletics calendar, there will be 35 gold label races registered to hold so far this year with none fixed for the February 15 date organizers of the Lagos City Marathon picked for what would be the 10th edition of the race.
Sportsnow.com.ng’s checks on the website of World Athletics reveals that only two World Athletics Label Road Races have been registered with World Athletics and are both on the website of the international governing body for the sport of athletics.
The two are the Marathon International de Rabat in Rabat, Morocco at the end of April (27) and the Durban International Marathon in Durban, South Africa.
Sportsnow.com.ng also understands that to organize a gold label 42.195km road race, organisers will have to pay a minimum of $210,000 in prize money alone.
Meanwhile, as many as 20 World Athletics certified road races have been approved for Nigeria following the update released by World Athletics in September last year.
These are proposed races whose courses have been measured by a World Athletics Certified Course measurer and certified by World Athletics (rule 31.21 compliant).
For an event to have its results processed, it needs to be part of the World Athletics Label Programme or to be listed on the World Athletics Global Calendar.
Some of these races include the two World Athletics Label races in Nigeria, the Lagos City Marathon and the Okpekpe international 10km road race as well as Abuja international 5km, 10km, half marathon and full marathon races; the Ibadan 10km and marathon events and the Onitsha 21.1km and 10km races.
The Osogbo Brandove Osun Women’s Run 10km, the Port Harcourt International Marathon and the Shagamu IAU 50km African Championships among others
