Nike Archives - The Running Mann

2nd August 20259th August 2025

Comrades 2025: Shoe Stats

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.

13th February 202513th February 2025

The Terrible Tale of Tiaan CONradie: The Lying Dutchman

This has not been a pleasant article to write. I knew Tiaan when I first started running in the early 2000s. He managed the Fourways Runner at the time, we both ran for Fourways Road Runners and he seemed like a “good guy”. Although we did not train for the race together, we both ran our first sub-3 marathon at Kaapsehoop in 2008 (and Tiaan featured in my race report). Tiaan has 19 Comrades finishes to his name including 3 silvers with a best time of 7:11:10 in 2012. He was an excellent runner and was perfectly entitled to give himself the moniker “The Flying Dutchman” (or TFD for short). Unfortunately, it turns out that he is also a master con artist and the “The Lying Dutchman” would have been much more appropriate.

When I got a message from a running friend asking, “Do you know Tiaan Conradie? I think he’s scammed us for shoes”, I was sceptical – surely there must be some kind of explanation. A couple of weeks later I received a similar message from a second running friend asking if I could apply my investigative skills to one Tiaan Conradie aka The Flying Dutchman. The result is this article and the hope that it will prevent others from getting caught in similar scams.