The Rimi Riga Marathon will host its strongest-ever elite half-marathon when its 21km race rolls down 11 November Krastmala on Sunday, 17 May. Race director Aigars Nords confirmed at a Riga press conference on Tuesday that two-time Boston Marathon champion Sharon Lokedi has accepted an invitation to debut at the Latvian capital’s World Athletics Elite Label road event, leading a women’s field that the organisers describe as the deepest in the marathon’s 31-year history.
Lokedi heads a six-runner Kenyan and Ethiopian core that includes Domenika Mayer, the German marathon record holder and 2025 Riga half-marathon champion, and Ejgayehu Taye, who took bronze over 10,000m at the 2023 World Championships before stepping up to the half last year. Brigid Kosgei, returning from a year of injury, has been listed as a late confirmation. The women’s race carries the deepest pace lights since the half-marathon was added to the Riga programme in 2010, with a target time of 65 minutes flat for the lead pack.
The men’s half-marathon is built around Tanzania’s Gabriel Geay and Kenya’s James Kipkogei, both of whom hold sub-60-minute personal bests and who finished within seconds of each other at the Lisbon Half last March. Race organisers have set a 59:00 pace target for a six-strong lead group, with German record-holder Samuel Fitwi—fresh off his 2:04:45 in Hamburg on 26 April—listed as a wildcard who could either cover or sit on the African tempo. Latvia’s national record-holder Valters Kaminskis is the home pick of the field.
The headline marathon distance, run on the Saturday a day before the half, has not attracted the same calibre of entry but has its own talking points. Race participation across the weekend has reached a new record of 40,500 entries from 95 countries, edging past last year’s 39,200 mark. The course has been homologated by World Athletics following minor tweaks to the river-side stretch over the Vansu Bridge, with organisers chasing the World Athletics Platinum Label that the marathon last held briefly in 2023.
Conditions are notoriously fickle in Riga in mid-May, but the new start time of 8am for the half-marathon gives the elites the best of the Baltic spring weather. The event has steadily climbed up the European participation table over the last five years and now sits inside the continental top ten by total starters. “We’re a midfield European race trying to give athletes a reason to skip Berlin or Copenhagen and run here instead,” Nords said. “Sharon’s entry is a sign that we’re getting the offer right.”