Comrades 2024: Start Line Stats

This is a part of a series of articles covering statistics from Comrades 2024. Other articles are Comrades 2024: Women’s Elite Stats, Comrades 2024: Men’s Elite Stats and Full Field Stat (to come). Depending on time, I will also do a detailed article on Qualifier Marathon Stats.

Note: Most of the content was originally posted on social media so there might be some past case / future case errors I missed when transcribing.

First Record Broken at Comrades 2024

The class of 2024 were officially the oldest group of starters at any Comrades Marathon where age records exist. As you can see from the graph below, the average age of the Comrades runner has steadily increased since 1990 from 35 to over 44 post-Covid.

Two noticeable step changes happened. The first was a full year increase from 39 to 40 in 2003 when the cutoff time was permanently increased to 12-hours. However, the biggest increase was the first post-Covid event which went from 42.1 in 2019 to 44 in 2022. I believe this is largely due to new joiners to the great sport of road running being “lost” during the Covid shutdowns with no road running fixtures (and most participants in 2022 were already “marathon runners” pre-Covid).

All data is based on finishers except 2024 which is qualified entrants. I expected that average finisher age for 2024 would likely decrease from 44.3 as youngsters have a far higher finisher percentage rate than the old timers. However the final average age for finishers actually increased to 44.5 – I assume that this is because there is a higher proportion on youngsters who do not arrive at the start line.

Detailed Batch Breakdown

Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of what the batches looked like at Comrades 2024. There are 20574 qualified entrants. Normally the number of starters drops by 10% so I expected around 18500 starters on 9 June (the actual figure was 18889).

D (3h40 – 4h00 marathon qualifier) was the largest batch followed by F (4h00 – 4h20). As one would expect the average age of those within each batch increases as one goes down the alphabet.

What is interesting is the very different distribution of the male and female entrants by batch. Just 23% of men are in the slowest two batches whereas 43% of women are in batches G and H (and adding F increases this to 63%).

Female athletes comprise just 19.6% of the field and are harder hit in the DNQ stats. There has been some discussion on the previous Race Director arbitrarily changing the qualification from 5h00 to 4h50 and this definitely negatively impacts female runners more than the men (as does illogical in-race cutoffs).

Note: Thankfully the new Board has recently announced that the qualification time will revert to 5h: The impact of 4h50 vs 5h00 Comrades qualification (and a short history of Comrades qualification criteria)

Breakdown by Previous Finishes

Over a quarter (26%) of the field were novices and a further 17% were going for their second finish (no doubt the majority of these are aiming for a back-to-back medal). Over 72% of the field has run 4 or fewer Comrades and just 11% were running in a Green Number.

As with batches, the male and female graphs look quite different with more than half of the female field going for their first or second finish and just 6% running in a Green Number. There were 6 triple Green women and 10 quadruple Green men lining up on 9 June (plus 3 women going for 30 and 2 men going for 40 finishes).

The cumulative percentage graph provides a good illustration of just how quickly the medal count heads towards 100% and that female entrants have far fewer finishes than the men.

I also took a look at the DNQs by medal. Over a third of the DNQs are novices with close to half of the female DNQs coming from novice entries. I would assume that this is because of the early entry requirement and high risk of injury in your first year of marathon running (I entered 2002 but only ran my first in 2003 due to injury).

Also sad to see 11% of DNQs come from Green Numbers – especially those with 30+ finishes who no doubt would like one more chance to hear Chariots of Fire before dawn. Perhaps the qualification requirement should be waived for Green Number holders?

Total number of Comrades Finishers

The first athlete across the line at Comrades 2024 will earn the 472085^th medal whilst the first novice will become the 126239^th person to finish Comrades.

Note: The figures below will be slightly inaccurate but are 99%+ correct.

This means that the ‘average’ Comrades runner earns 3.74 medals (although of course you cannot be average and earn a Comrades medal).

Also of note is that 105,341 men and 20,897 women have earned a Comrades medal so the percentage breakdown is 83.4% male and 16.6% female whereas the total medals earned breakdown is 86.4% male and 13.6% female.

The next graph shows how many people have earned a specific number of medals. As one would expect there is a steep drop off on the left of the graph with over 46000 people doing Comrades as a ‘one off’ and a further 26000 complete just two (I would assume most of these are ‘one up, one down’). On the other end of the scale, those who manage over 40 finishes are incredibly rare.

There is a noticeable bump at 10 which is of course when one earns a coveted Green Number (and much smaller bumps at 20, 30 and 40). Close to 2500 athletes have honoured the ‘one in your Green Number’ rule (which, in my book, only applies to fools and locals – I have 10 finishes and, as I am not a local, it remains to be seen whether I am a fool 😊).

The cumulative percentage graph shows that over half of the 126k humans that have completed Comrades have one or two medals. If you’re a Comrade with four or more medals you are in the Top 25% of all Comrades medallists and with 20 or more medals you are in the 1% club. Also of note is that only 11% of Comrades runners have earned a Green Number.

The final set of graphs allow you to see how many men, women and humans have run a set number of Comrades or more. For example, there are 13825 with 10 finishes or more, 1701 with 20 or more and just 177 with 30 or more. In 2024 there are 502 going for Green, 99 for Double Green, 33 for Triple Green, 2 for Quadruple Green and Barry Holland for Quintriple Green. I will be doing some separate stats on the men and women with the most finishes.

Men’s Hot 100

The table below shows the 101 men with the most finishes. Incredibly, 46 of them (including 7 of the Top 10) were aiming to add another medal (green rows) to their collection in 2024 and 11 entered by failed to qualify (orange rows). Savages and Westville both have two entries in the Top 10 but Savages, with 8, have the most on the Top 100 followed by Rockies (5) and Westville (4).

Barry Holland tops the table and was going for an incredible 50^th finish in 2024. Unfortunately, starting with an injury, he was not and to cross the line and become the first human to complete the same ultra marathon 50 times. Very few people (from previous research I estimated less than 10) have run the same marathon 50 times or more. The only South African I know of who has achieved this feat is Allan Ferguson (31^st on the Comrades list with 36 medals) at the Jackie Gibson Marathon.

Note: Sadly Barry Holland recorded his first DNF this year but will be back in 2025 along with Louis Massyn both gunning for their 50th medal.

Louis Massyn (2^nd with 48 medals) has spent the most ‘time on his legs’ over the road between Durban and Pietermaritzburg with 18 days 6 hours 36 minutes and 19 seconds. David Williams the only other runner above 18 days.

Alan Robb (6^th with 43 medals) has the fastest average time of 7:09:05 as well as the fastest median time of 6:38:40. Only 4 other runners have an average below the silver cutoff: Calie Beneke, Theo Rafiri, Timothy Blankley and Derek Pawley (none of them are running this year). Of note is that Shaun Meiklejohn with 31 medals is lurking just off the Hot 100 list and has an average finish time of 6:21:39.

Vic Boston (45 medals) is the ‘youngster’ on the Top 10 and will pass Dave Rogers for 3^rd place with a 2024 finish. Boston ran his first Comrades at the age of 17. Werner Kriel (63^rd with 33 medal) is the youngest on the list at 54.

Note: I have picked up some minor data issues when doing this chart (both on my source data and the official Comrades records). If you spot any errors please let me know so that I can correct them.

Women’s Hot 100

With 53 ladies in joint 81^st position with 20 medals, this list contains the 133 women with the most medals. 9 of the top 11 returned for another medal in 2024 (green rows = running in 2024, orange = entered by DNQ and blue = not entered). Stella have 3 entries in the Top 10 and Jeppe 2. The same two clubs dominate to Top 100 with 6 members each whilst Roodepoort have 5.

It’s great to see Kleintjie van Schalkwyk back for her first run since 2018. She managed to extend her record to 35. I wonder if Pat Fisher (who has the most “time on the legs” with 14 days 23 hours 5 minutes and 8 seconds) sneaking up behind her with 33 medals had anything to do with the return?

Marinda Ludick (4^th with 30 medals) is the only women to have run 30 consecutive Comrades but Val Watson and Malie van der Walt had the chance to equal this feat with their triple Green runs – as does Sharon Bosch with her 31^st. Also good to see Kim Pain and Comrades Board Member Pat Freeman back for their first post-Covid runs (Watson and Pain both made it, van der Walt did not start unfortunately).

There are 8 women who average under 9 hours: Audrey Steyn, Frances van Blerk, Martha Pretorius, Zanie van Rensburg, Moss Polao, Robyn Thompson, Wendy Bloom, Carol Crosley. Thompson is the fastest with 8:34:27 and Pretorius is the only of these returning in 2024.

Note: Where someone has changed surnames this is sometimes recorded as two different runners so if you spot any errors please let me know so that I can correct them.

Qualifying Marathons

Cape Town maintains its position as the most popular qualifying option for Comrades runners with Kaapsehoop (a downhill flyer) the only the only other marathon to break 1000. Two Oceans is in third with Irene (8th) the only other ultra on the list. Elands (another downhill flyer) is in 4th and Wally is in 5th (highlighting just how important providing a quick and fair solution to runners impacted by the additional 3km at last year’s event was).

Gauteng dominates the table with 8 events in the Top 20 whilst KZN has 5. The only other provinces represented are Western Cape, Mpumalanga and Free State. I will do some separate stats on this.

Benoni Northerns (10th) narrowly win bragging rights over Benoni Harriers (Johnson Crane in 11th) but they do have by the second slowest average qualifying time of 4:12:22 (and that is taking into account adjusted times for those that used the 48km option for their qualifier). The slowest average is Irene 48k with a marathon adjusted time of 4:18:35. Durban City produces the fastest average time of 3:50:50 (the overall average qualifying time for Comrades 2024 entrants is 4:01:07).

By request I’ve also included the Top 20 international qualification marathons. Mumbai is far and away the most popular and the only one with more than 100 entrants.

Whilst 47% of the local field comes from Gauteng, only 27% of the field qualifies at highveld marathons in the province. KZN has 22% of the field but also drops to 14% for qualifying purposes. Many runners travel for the qualification marathon with the Western Cape (10% of entrants but 26% of qualifiers) and Mpumalanga (4.5% of entrants but 12% of qualifiers) getting most of the tourism benefit.

The majority of 2024 entrants use March (22%) and April (23%) as their qualification month. I would have thought that this percentage would be higher as this is the period when most Comrades runners are in peak form and can run a hard marathon with enough time to recover before 9 June. The rest of the qualification period is fairly evenly spread out with the low numbers in December and January explained by the lower number of marathons available during those months. Just 7% leave it to a last minute qualifier in May.

A standard marathon is the qualification distance of choice with 87% going this route and a combined 13% running ‘short’ ultras (which generally have a much easier average pace for seeding). There are 24 runners who qualified with a run of 60km or longer including 6 athletes who’ve flexed by using a 100km qualifier. Two of these are former ladies winner Camille Herron and Elov Olsson from Sweden who has 2 top 20 finishes to his credit.

Mind the Gap

One of the interesting records I’d like to verify is the biggest gap between runs. Alison Truluck wonders whether her husband, Gordon, may hold this record. Gordon ran his first Comrades in 1977 at the age of 22 in the colours of Savages. It took him 38 years to recover and he returned for a second run in 2014 as a grandmaster. Truluck has run a further 3 Comrades in 2015, 2018 and 2019 and currently lives in Hereford, England where both he and Alison run for Wye Valley Runners.

Anyone know of a larger gap between Comrades? [I put this out on social media and no one is aware of a longer gap]

Youngest & Oldest Novices

The tables contain the names of the 11 youngest Comrades entrants, the top 20 oldest men, top 20 oldest women as well as the oldest males and female novices at this year’s Comrades.

I will see if I can work out the oldest ever male and female novice (I do know there was a Japanese runner, Yabuta Masami, who ran his one and only Comrades in 2018 at the age of 76.

Top 50 Clubs

Here are the 50 clubs with the biggest representation at Comrades 2024. Hollywood top the chart with almost 1000 runners and an amazing 97.1% ‘entry to qualified; conversion rate. Only Runners of Hope (98.7%), Thungela (98%), Mzansi (97.6%) and City of Mbombela (97.3%) have a higher qualification rate.

There are 6 Gauteng clubs in the Top 10 with Polokwane in 7^th bringing some Limpopo representation and Dolphin Coast in 9^th adding to the KZN count.

Whilst only 19.5% of the qualified entries are female, 5 of the Top 50 clubs are able to boast that 1 in 3 of their runners lack a Y chromosome: RunZone, Durbanville (who are tops with 39.7%), Jeppe, Phobians and VOB.

However, if you are a straight lady looking for talent, then the 4 clubs with the least competition (90% or greater male) to join for a training run are Nedbank KZN, Gaborone Striders, Faranani and Maritzburg City. Sasol Marathon Club (in 51^st position) have an even lower ratio of just 7.8%.

What’s in a Name?

Some fun stats to end this article…

If you are chatting to someone along the route and can’t remember their name, your best bet is to call them ‘Michael’ closely followed the second guess of ‘David’ who have 120 and 118 qualified Comrades entrants respectively.

The other first names in the Top 10 are Andrew, Bongani, Thabo, Sipho, Richard, Mark, Peter and Sibusiso. With less than 20% of the field being female there are no feminine names in the Top 10 but there are far more Michelles (42) than anyone else (Sarahs are second with 19).

On the last name front, there will be 135 Dlaminis and 117 Ndlovus lining up on Sunday. Traditional African names dominate the Top 10 (Khumalo, Nkosi, Mthembu, Mkhize, Ngcobo and Sithole) whilst the English and Afrikaans surname stereotype of Smith and Botha manage to crack the Top 10. The Naidoos are in 11^th and needed just 2 more of their tribe to enter to earn Top 10 status. When it comes to combinations, there will be 5 Bongani Dlaminis and 4 Themba Nkosis on this year’s Comrades route.

As for attrition, 30% of the Leons that enter fail to qualify. Using the criterion of 20 or more entrants, 1 in 5 Bruce, Jack, Kobus, Edward, Johan, Jason, George and Katlego didn’t make it to the start line. Expecting parents who want to maximise the probability of raising strong Comrades runners should consider naming them Jabulani, Ayanda, Phumlani, Thembinkosi, Nkululeko, Sabelo, Sello, Sanele, Francois, Zakhele, Stanley, Brett, Justice or Calvin as they all have perfect attendance records at Comrades 2024.

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