Two of the road races slated for Nigeria next year are among a record 238 road races included in the 2023 World Athletics Label Road Race calendar.
It will be noted that the calendar was released on Friday by the sport’s world governing body, World Athletics (WA).
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The races are the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon slated for Feb. 4, a Category A event in the Gold sub-group, and the Okpekpe Road Race of May 23 in Okpekpe, Edo.
The latter race is a Category E event and in the Label sub-group.
The number of races for 2023 is an increase of almost 20 races from the 2022 schedule.
According to World Athletics, the increase will allow the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) to extend the registered drug-testing pool for road-racing.
The 238 events which have registered for the Label programme include 14 Platinum Label races (14 marathons), 38 Gold Label races (25 marathons and 13 other distance races).
There are also 66 Elite Label races (41 marathons, 25 other distance races) and 120 Label races (59 marathons, 61 other distance races).
They are spread across 53 countries and all six geographic areas.
The series begins with the Xiamen Marathon, a Platinum Label race, on Jan. 2 and concludes on Dec. 31 with New Year’s Eve races in Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, Bolzano in Italy and Hainan in China.
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