Riga 10k: 29 August 2021
All runners
| # | Pos  |
Name |
Time  |
Cat |
Club |
Graded |
Pace |
| 1 | 1 | Charles Pridgeon | 43:34 | V55 | Serpentine | 72.0% | 7:01 |
Report
The Riga 10k is one of a series of 4 races around the headline event, the Rimi Riga Marathon in Latvia. The best reason to go to Riga is of course the Unesco World Heritage listed city centre with its hundreds of Art Nouveau buildings. To combine that with a race event is the cherry on the cake. The standard is not particularly high – perhaps that was a result of the travel difficulties this year posed by Covid. I was told that the 10k usually attracts a field of 2000-3000 but this year the physically present participants numbered 1226, roughly 54% men, 46% women. The course is picturesque and mercifully avoids the cobbles for which the old town is famous. It’s fast and wide and crosses the main river, the Daugava, twice in the last 4k.
The race was well organised with participants getting a green or yellow wristband depending on whether they were vaccinated or not, with separate start times for unvaccinated and a massed start for the vaccinated. My only gripe was in the last kilometre the faster 10k runners come across the 5-hour stragglers from the marathon who are rejoining the home straight. A little bit of weaving but it didn’t bother me. The winning men’s time was around 30 minutes but only 2 other runners broke 34 minutes. The winning women’s time was 38 minutes with only two runners breaking 40 minutes. This probably was due to the lack of international runners in the pandemic.
All-in-all a race to be recommended; good crowd support, good organisation, good route and a wonderful city to enjoy before and after.
Race report kindly provided by Charles Pridgeon.
Result queries
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