The Past, Present And Future Of Comrades

- Mike Finch

IN 2018 the Comrades Marathon will celebrate its 93rd edition, and in 2025 its centenary. But in a running landscape in which shorter-distance races are growing massively along with huge female participation, ultra-distance events such as Comrades face the challenge of remaining popular and relevant, while maintaining a solid sponsorship base. Since 2000, the Comrades has maintained a solid level of entries; but last year the event lost two headline sponsors, while the number of finishers – relative to entries – shows a dramatic drop-off. Chris Fisher took over as Comrades General Manager on 1 April 2015. We asked him about the future of Comrades, international competition, and sponsorship – and the challenge of attracting a new, younger generation to the great race.

The Comrades men’s race has been dominated by South African runners for the last five years. What happened to all the elite foreign competitors?

They’re still there – five of the top 10 men this year were foreigners. But we believe SA runners have become more professional in their approach to training.

The number of novice entrants has declined. Is this a concern for Comrades?

Three years ago, 23% were novices. For the last two years this has been 33%.