World Athletics said the next elite label road race on its calendar will hold on Saturday May 28, 2022 in Okpekpe, Edo State of Nigeria.
The Okpekpe International 10km road race is coming after the successful organisation of the TCS World 10K Bengaluru in India on Sunday May 15, 2022.
The governing body for the sport, on its label road race page on its website, alerts the whole world to the fact that the next World Athletics elite label road race will hold in Nigeria.
It is the only label road race in all label categories that will hold that day before the Kigali International Peace Marathon in Kigali, Rwanda and the Tartan Homes Ottawa International Marathon in Ottawa, Canada, which hold the next day. World Athletics Label Road Races are races that the World Athletics designates as one of the leading road races around the world.
The classification was first introduced for the 2008 running season, upon the suggestion of the IAAF Road Running Commission and the Okpekpe international 10km road race is the first road running event in West Africa to be granted a label status that confers on it the status of one of the leading road races in the world.
The Okpekpe race is returning after suffering two COVID-induced postponements in 2020 and 2021 and organisers have promised a better and bigger race this year, to be in line with its new classification as an elite label race.