St. Petersburg is recognized as the Running Capital of Russia for the third time.

St. Petersburg based on the results of the May 23 half marathon "Race.Russia" has been recognized as the Running Capital of Russia for the third time. Magadan is in second place, and Moscow is in third. The indicator was calculated based on the average distance covered by all participants of the city, the ratio of the number of participants "Race.RF" to the population and average running speed.

"St. Petersburg has once again proved its leadership by once again confirming the status of the official Running Capital of Russia! The counting formula is designed in such a way that cities with large populations require a very large number of participants to compete for this title. It is symbolic that after the triumphs in 2021 and 2025, it was during this jubilee "race.RF" the city on the Neva River demonstrated the peak of its sporting unity. This victory is the common merit of everyone who survived the maximum distance. I sincerely congratulate St. Petersburg, every athlete, volunteer, pacemaker and ambassador who, through their efforts on May 23, retained this honorary title for the Northern Capital of Russia!" said Ksenia Shoigu, head of the organizing committee of the One Run half marathon.

St. Petersburg, as the Running Capital, will receive a rolling Cup for safekeeping, on which the winners of previous years, starting in 2017, are engraved. The award will be presented to the city again at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum with the participation of Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev and head of the League of Heroes Ksenia Shoigu.

This year, "Run.RF" was held in all regions of Russia, as well as in 38 other countries called One Run: China, Brazil, Egypt, Serbia, Belarus, Morocco, UAE, Tunisia, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Pakistan, Qatar, Chile, Jordan, Malaysia, Hungary, India, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, Montenegro, Thailand, Tanzania, Maldives, Namibia, Lesotho, Peru, South Africa, Italy, Bahrain, Congo, Kenya, Mexico and Kazakhstan. In total, the half marathon brought together more than 250,000 runners, and its participants covered one of the following distances: 1, 5, 10 and 21.1 km.

Previously, the running capital based on the results of the "Race.Kazan became the Russian Federation twice – in 2017 and 2018, Vladivostok became it in 2019, Nizhny Novgorod in 2020 and 2022, St. Petersburg in 2021 and 2025, Lipetsk in 2023, Magadan in 2024, and St. Petersburg in 2026.