Comrades showdown could reshape SA athletics

Local athletics faces an important two weeks, with the Comrades Marathon Association (CMA) potentially capable of causing seismic changes to the sport’s national landscape.

This has become apparent after correspondence sent late in a tumultuous week during which KwaZulu-Natal Athletics (KZNA) president Steve Mkasi was suspended pending a probe into his street brawl with an athlete that was captured on video.

KZNA is on the one side of a high court action scheduled for Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday, launched by CMA members demanding clarity on the association’s status.

Among them is CMA chair Mark Leathers, who this week reiterated that the 2027 edition of the race was a certainty.

The CMA members are objecting to KZNA classifying the CMA an athletics club, which would limit its voting members to those living in KwaZulu-Natal.

But the bigger impact could come at the CMA’s special general meeting on August 1. A notice was sent out on Thursday asking members to vote on the organisation’s future direction.

In order to ensure that the association’s mandate is clear, current and beyond reproach, the board considers it appropriate to place the matter before members again

—  Mark Leathers, CMA chair

The first resolution asks members to choose between an accommodative approach, involving working with provincial and national structures, or a CMA-first approach, “under which the association will not compromise on ethics, legality, CMA governance, financial responsibility towards the CMA, or the interests of the race, and will, if necessary, withstand the disputes or resistance that may follow”.

The second resolution is whether CMA should re-affiliate with KZNA, after Athletics South Africa (ASA) recently told the association to take its decision to cut ties back to members.

“In order to ensure that the association’s mandate is clear, current and beyond reproach, the board considers it appropriate to place the matter before members again,” read the notice issued by Leathers.

The third is whether CMA should rescind its November 2025 resolution to seek affiliation with ASA, a request it made after walking out on KZNA.

ASA seemingly settled the third resolution on Friday, with acting president John Mathane informing Leathers that the CMA’s request had been denied.

“In terms of the constitution and governance structure of [ASA], all athletics bodies within a province are required to affiliate through the recognised provincial federation,” wrote Mathane.

If the members vote against rejoining KZNA, they will effectively opt out of ASA entirely.

Around 6,100 CMA members are eligible to vote at next month’s SGM.

Leathers, a lawyer, believes there is no law preventing the CMA from staging the Comrades independently of KZNA and ASA, with a precedent set by the 2012 judgment in the Pedal Power Association case against Cycling South Africa.

KZNA has been demanding race levies from CMA for the 2026 event, saying it will not sanction the 2027 race until they are paid.

CMA has told KZNA to provide a detailed breakdown of what is owed and why, but Leathers remains undeterred, insisting the centenary edition from Pietermaritzburg to Durban on June 13 next year is as good as written in stone.

CMA going it alone could also hurt ASA financially because the national federation earns broadcast rights from a package of events of which the Comrades is arguably the highest profile.

The language [in ASA correspondence] has been discourteous in the extreme and could be construed as being deliberately calculated either to provoke a dispute or, alternatively, to create the impression that a dispute exists where in fact no such dispute exists

—  Court papers

Court papers filed in the case between the CMA members and KZNA reveal a history of tension between the association and ASA, referenced by then CMA chair Brian Kurz in a letter written in early 2000.

“The language [in ASA correspondence] has been discourteous in the extreme and could be construed as being deliberately calculated either to provoke a dispute or, alternatively, to create the impression that a dispute exists where in fact no such dispute exists.”

In the letter — included in the court bundle for Wednesday’s opposed motion — Kurz wrote about the CMA being a club.

“The CMA maintains with respect that there is actually no distinction between the words ‘club’ and ‘association’, the meaning of both words being ‘a body of persons joined together for common purpose’, which reduces this issue to semantics.”

This distinction is at the heart of the CMA members’ case against KZNA.

They argue that CMA — before disaffiliating — was not an athletics club but rather an associate member of the provincial body.

All members of athletics clubs are bound by ASA’s domicile rule, under which members must reside in the province of the club.

But the CMA’s members include non-athletes, including former athletes and volunteers who have previously worked with the race. No geographical limitation had previously been placed on CMA membership.

The Sunday Times understands that Two Oceans members include blue-number athletes irrespective of where they live.

KZNA tried to enforce the domicile rule ahead of an SGM in 2024, but the CMA members won an urgent interdict.

KZNA has since argued in court papers that it never passed a resolution on the domicile rule ahead of that SGM, but merely offered the CMA an opinion that was not enforceable, arguing it made the interdict application unnecessary.