This is part of a series of statistics articles on Comrades 2025. Other articles published: entry stats, qualifier stats. Other articles to come: elite women, elite men, full field statistics.
Asics retains their dominant the market share with 1 in 3 medallists stomping down to Durban in their footwear. In 2024 Adidas and Nike were joint second on 16% but the three-striped brand moves into clear second with a rapid rise to 22%. The Nike wearers who’d just done it in 2024 are now either in a period of ultra abstinence or have swapped brands dropping them to 13%, narrowly ahead of New Balance with 11%. The rise of Adidas and fall of Nike is marked by a comparison 2022: Adidas have moved from 11 to 22% and Nike from 20 to 13% in just three years. Over half the finishers (55%) cross the line wearing one of the two A-brands and combining the two N-brands brings this to 4 out of 5 finishers.
When it comes to success rate, Adidas (90.2%) are the only brand over 90% and finish a whisker ahead of Nike (89.5%) with Saucony (88.6%) in third. Puma, who were first in 2024 move to fourth with an 88.6% success rate (Saucony were second and Adidas third in 2024). Maxed, which is disproportionately worn by faster runners, is usually on the bottom of this chart (probably due to the number of A and B seeds who crash and burn on the road to Durban) but narrowly avoid the wooden spoon in 2025 which goes to Brooks (82.4%).
Maxed does however have the highest proportion of their runners finishing Silver or better and keep this record for the Bill Rowans as well (this is the same result as in 2024). Vic Claphams bring New Balance to the force at the back of the pack with 37.9% of their runners coming home in the final hour. This is only trumped by Brooks who have 39.6% of their runners returning home with a copper medal.
The shoe worn by medal earned should be used in conjunction with the overall finisher market share. Nike does disproportionately well up front earning almost half the golds and just under 40% of the Wally Haywards and Isavel Roche-Kellys. Maxed, with just 2% of overall market share, punch well above their weight category in most prestigious medal categories.
Adidas does well in the gold, not so well in the WH/IRK but their silver lining is that more than one in three of the sub-7h30 finishers are wearing their shoes. Very noticeable is how Nike and Adidas decrease as the day progresses whilst Asics and New Balance are the preferred shoe brand for those further back in the field. When it comes to DNSing and DNFers, Asics, New Balance and Brooks are all well above their market share whilst Adidas is well below.
Taking a look at the shoes worn by the fastest 100 male and female finishers (which will be heavily influenced by sponsorships), Nike dominate both genders but a large part of this is because Nedbank Running Club has by far the most athletes in the Top 100 and they are sponsored by Nike. Between Nike and Adidas they consume 64% of the male and 55% of the female top 100. Fewer of the ladies are sponsored leading to more diversity in their shoe closet.
There is a difference in the gender brand preferences with women wearing proportionally more Brooks, New Balance and Saucony than the men who favour Asics, Nike and Adidas. I wondered whether Gerda Steyn’s Adidas sponsorship impacted the Adidas market share growth but, if that is the case, it’s working more amongst the men. I think it’s more likely that the ‘start and finish Cape Town Marathon in Adidas’ R2000 voucher carrot is incentivising people to switch brands.
In previous years, younger runners (under 40) ran proportionally more in Adidas whereas Asics dominates in the 50 and over bracket. Interestingly, Adidas still does their best in the 30-39 bracket but are lower than their average market share in the under 30s. The other brands remain reasonably constant over time.
Consistent with the age trend, it’s noticeable how Asics are favoured by the more experienced runners whilst Adidas drops drastically as the medal count climbs. Nike also shows some growth correlated to medals earned whereas the opposite is true for Saucony.
The shoes by batch graph further highlights that those endowed with the best ultra marathon DNA run in Nike and Adidas. “A” Batch is also where Maxed have their biggest market share but once again it is not clear whether this is due to sponsorships or because this is the most affordable shoe for talented lower income runners (Maxed shoes feature prominently amongst Wally Hayward Medal winners). It is also notable that Asics and New Balance increase their market share as one goes down the alphabet.
A table with some of the source information for the above is included below. This includes data for the smaller brands. It highlights that the fastest average time is 9:12:36 by the 6 runners finishing in 360 degrees and for the larger brands Maxed with an average of 9:39:28 earns bragging rights. As in 2024, Brooks are on the other end of the table with 10:46:44.
Heading photo courtesy of Comrades Marathon Association.
Follow Running Mann:
Hi ,me I run with adidas pro 3 is nice and comfortable for long and short runs, I really feel fine when I run with it
My shoe is part of other, I almost self sabotage my own race, picked up Two Oceans branded Joma shoes in race week, they felt very comfortable, did a 10km and a shake out run Durban, my mine was made up, ran in new shoes, felt great the whole race, I took 3 weeks break after Comrades, ai now have an injury and I suspect Joma has something to do with it. Ill park them for now.