Personally , I think both Comrades and Two Oceans should allow full-year qualification ( i . e . race date to race date ) to balance the running calendar better . Analysis of Comrades qualification marathons showed that those who ran their qualifiers earlier ( e . g . in October or November 2021 ) performed much better ( higher finish rate and faster average time ) than those who did late qualifiers . There is no statistical justification for limiting the qualification to a seven-month window .
Most Popular Comrades Qualifiers
The most popular marathon submitted as a qualifier by Comrades 2022 entrants was the Abbott World Marathon Majors aspirant , the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon , with 1048 runners using the October 2021 race as their qualifier for the 2022 Comrades . Qualifying at the Cape Town Marathon also resulted in one of the fastest average times and best finisher rates at Comrades .
Images : Tobias Ginsberg & Stuart Mann
There is no statistical justification for limiting Comrades qualification to a seven-month window
The other events scoring over 500 entrants were all races held in the last few months of qualifying : Dolphin Coast ( 947 ), Benoni Northerns ( 895 ), Wally Hayward ( 710 ) and Edenvale ( 592 ). Three ultras make the Top 10 – the Two Oceans Marathon ( 6th ), Om Die Dam ( 8th ) and Irene ( 9th ), but no other ultra makes the Top 20 . Two Oceans ( 92.8 %) and Om Die Dam ( 93 %) also have the best finish rates , and subsequent analysis showed that running an early ultra as your qualifier is statistically significant in predicting your Comrades success rate .
Unsurprisingly , this list is dominated by flat and downhill races , but what is somewhat surprising is that Kaapsehoop is missing from the list . For those who like the easy way out , I ’ d recommend the Tony Viljoen Masters Marathon in East London as the easiest marathon in the country .
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