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- The Comrades Marathon Association has increased race entries from 15 000 to 20 000 for the first race since 2019.
- This increase has been necessitated by an influx in local and international entries.
- The race has also been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Comrades Marathon entries have hit fever-pitch, with race organisers forced to increase the cap for the world's biggest and oldest ultra-marathon from 15 000 to 20 000.
Comrades Marathon race director Rowyn James said the rapid spike in numbers for the race that'll take place on 28 August meant they needed to increase the number of entries.
"Due to the considerable enquiries and demand from our athletes, both locally and internationally, to secure an entry for this year’s Down Run, the CMA has decided to increase the entry cap," James said.
"During the week-long first entry window period, the CMA received 11 307 entries. We are delighted to have received more than 3 500 entries on the first day of the second entry window period thereby necessitating the entry cap increase."
The race was curtailed by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, not giving Edward Mothibi and Gerda Steyn an opportunity to collect the down run titles.
The 2019 race was the trek from Durban to Pietermaritzburg that Mothibi won in a time of 5:31:33 while Steyn broke Elena Nurgalieva's 2006 up-run record of 6:09:24 with a spellbinding time of 5:58:53.
The down-run records are held by David Gatebe (5:18:19 in 2016) and Frith van der Merwe (5:54:43 in 1989).
The last down-run in 2018 was won by Bong'musa Mthembu (5:25:34) and Ann Ashworth (6:10:03).
