Comrades Marathon organisers vow to improve after problems on Sunday

The Comrades Marathon Association (CMA) says it will address concerns from Sunday’s edition of the race, highlighting in a press statement the congestion at the finish line, especially over the final hour.

But the organisation made no mention of the fiasco around the lack of water tables for elite runners, with organisers using mats on the ground instead.

Runners had to find their bottles and then bend down to pick them up and there was at least one claim that some mats were surrounded by spectators and one runner found their bottle five metres away in the veld.

The organisation said in a statement late on Wednesday night that they had invited road-running expert Dr Hilary Walker, general secretary of the International Association of Ultrarunners, to the race.

“The CMA met with her the day after the race for an initial feedback session,” the statement read.

CMA general manager Alain Dalais said: “She had valuable insights to share on various aspects of our race and will be sending us a more detailed report soon which we will add to the 2025 debrief process as we work towards making the 2026 and 2027 races even better.”

Sunday’s down run, a dress rehearsal for the centenary event in 2027, featured a split start for the first time and a record field with 18,194 finishers, 86.75% of the 20,792 starters.

Elsewhere in the statement the CMA offered fact boxes showing 18,209 finishers, pointing out the number could change after investigations. 

Organisers found that 19 Group 2 runners had started in Group 1 and each was penalised with a 30-minute time penalty — double the 15 minutes they gained by moving up.

The CMA said 440 runners were admitted to the medical tent at the finish and 200 athletes were sent to hospital, 169 of them directly from the route.

Twenty-five athletes were admitted to hospital and by Wednesday five were still there, including Moira Harding, the Cape Town woman who had gone missing at the finish and was found unconscious some kilometres away the next morning.

“All of these patients are stable and recovering and are likely to be discharged in the next few days. The Comrades race doctor is closely monitoring their recovery and is in constant contact with the hospitals,” Dalais said.

The most tracked participant on the Comrades app was women’s winner Gerda Steyn with 52,630 checks, followed by early men’s leader Onalenna Khonkhobe (25,819) and then men’s winner Tete Dijana (24,208).

Of the finishers, 10,852 (95.48%) came from Group 1 and 7,357 (76.57%) from Group 2, though the CMA said the numbers could change since “a small number” of results were being investigated.

Nearly a third of the 14,647 male runners finished in the final hour while just more than half of the 3,562 women completed the race in that time.

A total of 523 runners earned green numbers, 421 of them for 10 finishes, 81 for 20, 20 for 30 and one for 50.

The CMA said 2,827 runners received back-to-back medals.