Record numbers take part in Waterford Viking Marathon event

The Waterford Viking Marathon event was held this year on Sunday the 21st of June 2026 on what was a lovely sunny day.

The number of finishers in each event were...
Marathon - 600
Half-Marathon - 1727
Quarter-Marathon - 1487
Disability Friendly Run - 46
Relay - 26 (13 teams of 2)

That gives a grand total of 3886 participants which was a record number.

Full results... https://my.raceresult.com/402206/results

You can see from the chart that there was strong growth in the half-marathon. Entries for the various races closed around late May so it's not like it was sold out months in advance.

Real numbers... The real number of participants however is about 25% less than the claimed number.

Here are a few extracts from media sources...

Organisers on Facebook... " Join 5,000+ participants on Sunday 21st June and experience the atmosphere of Ireland's biggest running festival."

Waterford & Star News... "On the longest day of the year, Waterford basked in the heat and an atmosphere of celebration, achievement and community spirit at the weekend as a record-breaking 5,200 participants took part in the largest WLR Waterford Viking Marathon in the event’s history."

WLRFM... "The 2026 WLR Waterford Viking Marathon took place this morning with 5200 competitors from 33 countries taking part in this years event."

Irish Independent... "Over 5,200 athletes bring streets of Waterford city alive in largest ever Viking Marathon"

It's likely that they are just requoting the numbers in a press release. The 5200 number may refer to the number of people that entered the event? Were there 25% no-shows on the day?

There seems to be a trend of overstating the numbers taking part. The same happened in the Cork marathon event where they were claiming over 12,000 but the number of finishers never broke 10,000.