STATISTICS
Entry Stats & Facts # 5
Nothing makes a statistically-minded runner like me more excited than getting my hands on a database as rich in info as the Comrades Marathon entries database, and I had hours of fun going through it all and finding these interesting stats and stories. – BY THE RUNNING MANN
OLDEST MALE STARTERS
Amongst the oldest 20 men who’ ve qualified for Comrades 2025, top of the charts is the evergreen Johannes Maros Mosehla, who is running for the third time in the octogenarian category. He is a good bet to add another digit to the oldest ever Comrades finisher record. However, Mosehla is an incredible outlier, there are just two humans who’ ve completed Comrades at 80 or older – the other is the legendary, five-time Comrades winner Wallace‘ Wally’ Hayward. This year, two other gentleman, Herman Verhage from Magnolia and Matule Headbush from JCC, have the opportunity to add their names to this very exclusive list.
There are three novices on this list, but just one, Pikzo Sibanyoni, will be a first-time starter. All the best to Nal Lokeshwar on his second attempt, and I will be rooting for Solomon Chewane who has six starts, but no medal to show for it yet. However, the man of the hour will be the 15tholdest man in the field, the legendary Louis Massyn, who will hopefully become the first person to achieve 50 Comrades medals. This will also be a world first, as no other human has run the same ultra 50 times or more.
OLDEST FEMALE STARTERS
Women live five to seven years longer than men, but tend to hang up their Comrades shoes much earlier. These two facts may be correlated. There is just one woman who has finished Comrades over the age of 74: Petra Myburgh. She missed last year’ s event, but is back in 2025 for her 25th run and will hopefully extend her record to 76.6 on 8 June.
Pat Fisher from Stella is second-oldest and has the second-most medals for females with 34, and she is followed by Linda Icely, who adds credence to the‘ old’ in Old Edwardians. I did a guest speaking slot at Old Eds’ Comrades breakfast recently, and Linda was still looking spritely after running the RAC 10k earlier that morning.
There are very few women who’ ve finished Comrades at 70 or older, and this year the 70 + women’ s field is just 12-strong. Two of these are novices- Wenche Dörum from Norway and Chandra Ramamoorthy from the USA. A special mention needs to go to Australian Jennifer Kellett, who trains with the Fordyce Fusion team. She was a novice in 2024 and ran a phenomenal 9:08 as a 69-year-old. Returning as a 70-year-old, she will be gunning for the 70 + women’ s record of 10:29:26 which was set by American Suzanne Koonce in 2024.
A final note of recognition must go to Kleintjie van Schalkwyk, a relative spring chicken at 61.6, and therefore not on this list. She will be aiming to extend her record for most medals for a female runner to 36 this year, and she is best placed to be the first woman to earn a quadruple Green Number.
YOUNGEST STARTERS
Amongst the youngest male and female starters, all the men are novices, and there are 11 who are 21 on the nose or younger. Further down the list, at 21.4 years old, Michael Herholdt( Maties) is the youngest non-novice male. Jean-Pierre van Dyk from RAC, who will be just 22.8 years old on race day, already has an impressive three medals. On the women’ s side, there is just one under 21. Angy McColl, fourth-youngest at 21.7, is the youngest back-toback medallist in the field, and is running this year again to raise money for the Viljoenskroon Old Age Home. She will be joined by her father, Stuart, running his 21st and mother, Maranata, running her 15th. Ela Meiring and Claudia Matuvi from Zimbabwe( the only non-South African on the list) are both aiming for a third finish.
50