Comrades Marathon to ensure safety of runners amid ongoing COVID-19 pandemic

It’s time to lace up, stretch out and get to the starting line! After two years of cancellations, the Comrades Marathon is back and looking to ensure the safety of its runners amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This year’s down run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban is in August.

CMA Chairperson Mqondisi Ngcobo says so far, more than 15 000 runners have registered, the majority are from Gauteng. Ngcobo says runners from the United Kingdom and India account for the most number of international entries.

“We are looking at doing staggered starts to ensure the health and safety of our runners. The staggered start will ensure that they start in batches to ensure that we are not seen to be a spreader. When you look at it now, the [COVID-19] numbers are increasing that is why we decided to go to 28th August because we are anticipating we may have a 5th wave around this time. You remember that over the past years, it has been in June but we moved to August. We are hoping that by that time the numbers would have dropped drastically for us to stage a safe and world class race,” says Ngcobo.