Nordea Riga marathon has been awarded the prestigious International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Road Race Bronze Label. Nordea Riga marathon at the moment is the first race in Northern Europe to receive this award.

Each year IAAF is awarding the leading road races in the world to enhance quality of the races. The award is based on a wide range of criteria, including technical requirements to secure health and safety of participants, achieve high results, certain media and promotion requirements and many more.

IAAF president Lamine Diack congratulates the race and recognizes: “It is obvious that the popularity of long distance and marathon running has increased tremendously during the last decade. Running has become a topical healthy life-style trend all over the world and there are several hundred marathons held annually. In order to promote quality standards among race organisers and to single out leading road races in the world, the IAAF introduced the Road Race Labels in 2008. We are happy to welcome new races and new regions on this leading marathon map, in this case Northern Europe and the Baltics, where the running culture is developing very fast. The IAAF congratulates Nordea Riga Marathon on the achievement and wishes the organisers success in their future endeavours to further improve the quality of this event.”

For the last five years Nordea Riga marathon has experienced steady growth and it has placed itself on the international map of road races. Last year out of total number of participants 10% were coming from abroad. In 2011 race attracted almost 1700 foreign runners from 45 countries with the largest representation from Finland (338 participants), Lithuania (215 participants), Estonia (173 participants), Germany (147 participants), Great Britain (135 participants) and Italy (118 participants). Designation of IAAF Road Race label is yet another proof of international recognition of Nordea Riga marathon.

In 2011 IAAF with the Road Race label awarded 39 marathons and 12 half-marathons, among them Tokyo marathon, Roma marathon, Paris marathon, Prague marathon and half-marathon, London marathon, Boston marathon, Berlin marathon, Amsterdam marathon, Venice marathon and more.

“All involved parties were working for several years on attaining this objective. It is mutual achievement of all the sponsors and partners, with fundamental involvement of Riga City council. The award urges us to ensure that each participants, no matter arriving from Latvia, Finland, Estonia, Japan, Kenya or any other country, when running along the streets of Riga would testify that the award was well-earned,” said Race Director Aigars Nords.

Next Nordea Riga marathon will take place on May 20, 2012 (Sunday). There will be 4 distances available: classical marathon, half-marathon, 10K and 5K. Registration is already open and during the first weeks of registration there are already representatives from 18 countries registered and organizers believe the international recognition of the race will increase.

Additional info: http://www.iaaf.org/lrr10/index.html