Chisom Nwosu had been training since October. Five mornings a week, before her children woke up, she ran laps around her estate in Surulere, building toward the 10-kilometre race she had promised herself she would complete before turning 40.
She finished it. But she almost did not get her medal.
“I waited almost an hour,” she said, standing near the finish area after the 2026 Access Bank Lagos City Marathon in February. “People were pushing. Nobody was directing anyone. I finally got it from a volunteer who looked just as confused as we were. It should not have been like that.”
Her frustration was minor compared to what others witnessed that day. Near the finish line, an ambulance struck a woman. Video of the incident spread across social media within hours. And Lagos — a city that has spent a decade building one of Africa’s most prominent sporting events — suddenly found itself facing uncomfortable questions about safety, crowd control, and whether the race’s infrastructure is enough to cater to the organisers’ ambition.
“You want to celebrate the achievement,” another runner said, “but moments like that take the shine off.”
Ten years in the making
The Lagos City Marathon was revived in 2016 after lying dormant for nearly three decades. The Lagos State Government, with Access Bank as lead sponsor, set out to place the city on the global running map — alongside the established races in London and Berlin.
At the time, then-Governor Akinwunmi Ambode described the marathon as an opportunity to “showcase our state to the global community as a choice destination for tourism and investment.” He pledged to sustain the event and steadily improve it until it ranked among the best in the world.
By several measures, that ambition has gained ground. The inaugural 2016 race drew modest international participation and as much criticism as praise. A decade later, the field has grown to more than 60,000 participants from over 10 countries, elite athletes now compete regularly, and the prize purse ranks among the largest on the continent.
This year, international sports networks lined the route as Kenya’s Ezra Kipchumba Kering surged across the finish line, and the pictures were broadcast all around the world.
“The progression I have seen at the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon is truly phenomenal,” said Nadeem Khan, President of the International Association of Ultra Runners. “Year after year, the race keeps improving in standards, organisation, and global appeal.”
For organisers, the growth has been planned. Yetunde Olopade, Managing Director of Nilayo Sports Management, organisers of the race, said the 11th edition marks a turning point.
“It is not just another race,” she said. “It signals the beginning of another decade of excellence, impact, and global recognition for the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon.”
The marathon has also evolved into a public health platform. Messaging around cardiovascular fitness, diabetes prevention, and mental wellness runs through the event’s outreach. For state officials and organisers, the race is simultaneously sport, policy, branding, and public health — a lot to carry, and a lot to get right.
A decade on, the race is beginning to receive the attention it deserves from across the world. The question, after this year’s setbacks, is whether the event’s systems are moving at the same pace as its reputation.
The Ambulance
The footage is not easy to watch. An ambulance, lights flashing, moves through a finish-line area still packed with runners, volunteers, and spectators. There is almost no room. Then the vehicle makes contact with a woman. She goes down.
What exactly the ambulance was responding to has not been made clear by organisers. The woman was taken for medical attention.
“There should never be a situation where an emergency vehicle is moving through a crowd like that without a cleared corridor,” said Dr. Seun Obalola, a physician who has worked medical detail at large public events and had travelled from outside Lagos to join the race. “That is basic event safety. You plan for it before race day, not during.”
On X, the marathon’s hashtag trended, but most conversations centred around the mishaps and not the winners. Commenters questioned the crowd management and the lack of visible marshalling near the finish.
The organisers issued a short statement saying they were reviewing their safety procedures. “The statement contained no plan. We need to know how that happened and how it won’t happen again next year,” said Phillip Obesam, one of the runners.
Why has Nigeria not won the race
Away from the controversy, the results board told the same story it has told for years. East Africans dominated the race, and Nigerian runners did not come close to the podium in either the elite men’s or women’s race.
To understand why, you have to understand what Kenya and Ethiopia have built over 50 years.
It starts with geography. Towns like Iten in Kenya and Bekoji in Ethiopia are above 2,000 metres. Runners who train at altitude develop greater lung capacity and higher red blood cell counts than those who train at sea level. When they come down to race in Lagos — which sits at roughly 41 metres — the physiological advantage comes into play.
However, altitude is only part of the answer. Kenya and Ethiopia have built a culture around distance running. Iten, for instance, a town of fewer than 5,000 people, houses dozens of professional training camps. Elite coaches — many of them former world champions — live and work there permanently. Young runners are identified in primary school, brought into structured programmes, and developed methodically over the years. This arrangement is backed by corporate sponsors, the sport federations, who all operate within the same pipeline with international agents.
Nigeria has no equivalent of Iten. Athletics are underfunded and poorly coordinated. The Athletics Federation of Nigeria has struggled with governance issues that have periodically disrupted athlete pathways and sponsorship relationships. There is no national distance running programme, no high-altitude training facility, no structured route from a promising teenager in Obudu to a Lagos Marathon starting line with a coach.
The gap will not disappear on its own.
What has to change
The Lagos Marathon’s problems are not unique to Lagos. Last year, the London Marathon was marred by protesters throwing paint onto the course, and the same year, ICE agents conducting raids became an issue during the runoff to the Chicago Marathon.
The most urgent fix is safety infrastructure. Every major urban marathon operates with designated emergency corridors — cleared lanes, known in advance to all marshals and medical teams, through which ambulances move without entering active race zones. Lagos does not appear to have enforced this in 2026. Establishing and policing those corridors, with trained marshals at every critical intersection, is not expensive. It is a planning decision.
Finish-line management needs the same attention. The chaos Chisom Nwosu and hundreds of others described — missing medals and dangerous crowding — points to a staffing failure. World Marathon Majors use timed exit chutes, staggered medal distribution zones, and volunteer-to-runner ratios that ensure every finisher is guided safely through the post-race area. Lagos needs to adopt a similar model.
Longer term, several athletics officials have proposed using the Lagos Marathon as the anchor of a national distance-running programme — identifying promising Nigerian runners at the race, channelling them into structured training, and building a pipeline toward future podiums. The Athletics Federation of Nigeria and the Lagos State Sports Commission would need to collaborate formally, with committed multi-year funding rather than annual press releases. The Nairobi Marathon has been used as a feeder for Kenyan club development. South Africa has built a school-to-elite pathway through the Comrades Marathon ecosystem. Both offer a template.
“We want to be Boston. We want to be Berlin,” said Funmi Lawal, a recreational runner who has completed the Lagos Marathon four times and plans to return next year despite her frustrations. “But those cities treat every runner like they matter — not just the elites. That is what we are asking for.”
Chisom Nwosu, the mother from Surulere, said she will run again. The medal she eventually received hangs in her bedroom. Her children think it is the greatest thing she has ever done.
“I am proud,” she said. “But proud does not mean things were right. Both can be true at the same time.”
