Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 119, June 2019 | Page 46
OUT OF
THE By BOX
Norrie Williamson
TIME FOR A NEW APPROACH
Over the history of the Comrades Marathon, the size of the field has grown immensely, and can be expected to increase further
for the 2021 centenary race and the 100 th edition of the race in 2025. This has resulted in numerous changes to the race
rules in the past, and now may need more rules put in place, in particular regarding cut-off times and pacesetting buses.
women’s winner, Elizabeth Cavanagh, was beaten to
the line by Lettie van Zyl, one of the 168 entrants who
had been refused by the selection criteria.
Rapid Growth
It is worth remembering that in those days there were
no official refreshment tables, but rather each runner
had one or more ‘seconds’ on the route, travelling by
car or motorbike. The 1500 cap was soon dropped,
and by 1981 the field had grown to break 5000
entrants for the first time, and thus water tables were
introduced to replace the traditional mobile seconds,
with very strict ‘stand and hand’ seconding rules.
I
n its inaugural race in 1921, just 34 runners took on
the 90km Comrades Marathon journey of mostly dirt
road from ‘Maritzburg to Durban. Numbers continued
to grow, and in 1927 the advent of tar roads, and more
traffic, contributed to the reduction of the cut-off to 11
hours. The first sign of ‘overload’ of runners came in
1968, when a halfway cut-off, fondly referred to as the
‘Chopper,’ was introduced. It’s purpose was to reduce
the time helpers had to stay out there, and disruption
to traffic on the road, but was lenient at 6 hours 30
minutes for the 11-hour final cut-off. Clearly anyone
not making that cut-off would not make the finish! A
few years later it was reduced to a more logical six
hours, and only many years later to 5:30.
of colour and to women, which meant that while
on one hand the field was restricted in growth by
qualification, the potential numbers were significantly
increased by the acceptance of new runners. In fact,
168 more entries were received than the allocation,
which on the day created an anomaly. The official
By 1988, the field had grown to 10,000 runners.
Typically, in this era between 7% and10% would earn
a silver medal with a sub-7:30 finishing time. Then the
millennium saw the introduction of a once-off 12-hour
cut-off, and entries jumped to 24,000, but there were
numerous concerns for safety on the heavily congested
roads. Nevertheless, the current 12-hour cut-off was
reinstated in 2003 and numbers lining up on the day
have consistently been in the 13,000 to 16,000 range,
with between 11,000 and 13,000 finishing.
The number of finishers in the sub-11:00 bracket have
been similar to the hay-days of the 1980’s, with the mass
The consistent growth in the race field continued, to
the extent that in 1975 a qualification requirement
was introduced for the first time. This had nothing
to do with medical or health reasons, but rather was
an attempt to be seen to take action on restricting
numbers and time on the road, in order that the
authorities would not be forced to act. The condition
of entry had a two-pronged approach for the first year:
Runners required a 4:30 marathon to qualify, and only
1500 entrants who qualified would be accepted.
There was a certain irony to this, as 1975 was also
the year that the race was opened to both runners
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ISSUE 119 JUNE 2019 / www.modernathlete.co.za
Qualification Criteria