Lidingöloppet - Plaque
Plaque name: Lidingöloppet
Location: Grönstavägen 33, 181 43 Lidingö, Sweden
Plaque awarded: 24/09/2022
Reason: Plaque Category – Competition
The annual Lidingöloppet, a World Athletics Cross Country Tour silver competition, is the world’s largest cross country running race.
Lidingö is a municipality which is part of metropolitan Stockholm, with the island of Lidingö at its heart, on which the competition takes place. ‘Loppet’ means race.
Since 1982, the race has been listed in the Guinness World Records book as the world's largest cross country race. There are usually around 15,000 runners in the 30km, with other races bringing the total number of participants across the weekend to around 35,000 each year.
Lidingöloppet, which is organised by the sports clubs IFK Lidingö Orientering (SOK) and IFK Lidingö Track and Field (Friidrott), is a challenging, undulating course.
The first ever Lidingö race in 1965 was 30km long and 644 runners signed up, and of these, 512 runners completed the distance.
The distance for senior men has remained 30km. In 1967, a female race over 15km was established. Since 1996 women also have had an official distance over 30km.