Humorous Anecdotes, Observations & Accounts of Marathon Running & Agile Adventures.
Just when South African runners thought it was safe to go back onto the internet after Cape Town Marathon’s new race date announcement, the Comrades Marathon decided it was time to get their share of the social media limelight with the announcement of staggered starts for the first time in the race’s 104-year-old history.
Continue reading “Staggered Starts (Comrades introduces the Two Pot System)”
First off, let’s give some credit where it’s due. KwaZulu Natal Athletics (KZNA) Vice President Mandla Mngomezulu is a masterful spin doctor, perhaps even surpassing his boss Steve Mkasi (the Surgeon General of spin doctoring), with this latest press release. If Spin Dr. Mngomezulu had written a press release for Manchester United after they were beaten by Tottenham Hotspurs last weekend, you would swear that United had won the game and were still in the title race rather than hovering just above relegation.
Unfortunately, it appears that the KZNA executive take their runners for fools. Fortunately, no one is buying their nonsense. I doubt anyone outside of the undemocratic Republic of Mkasistan would give much credence to anything coming out of the KZNA offices these days. However, lest there be any doubt, I’ve taken the time to dissect the document.
Continue reading “Lies, Damn Lies & KZN Athletics Media Statements”
This is part of a tetralogy of articles providing an in-depth statistical analysis of Comrades 2024. The articles on Elite Men, Elite Women and Start Line Stats are already available.
The graph below is a hurricane funnel answering the often-asked question, “What happens to all the entries?”, plotting the fate of the 24,094 Comrades 2024 entries. There was a 21.6% attrition rate to get to the start line which is very similar to the most recent Up runs in 2017 (20.8%) and 2019 (22.4%). However, almost 94% of starters crossed the finish line (although 350 of these did so over 12 hours).
The three percentages are based on total entries, starters and finishers respectively (e.g. 3.6% of entries finish under 7h30, 4.5% of starters and 4.9% of medallists). There is more detailed analysis on the medal breakdowns as well as overall finish success rates comparisons later in this article.
If a politician were to claim that an election was rigged at a press conference, you would expect them to provide some proof. Should the politician continue along this line of rhetoric but fail to provide any proof they should be treated with disdain, derision and scorn by the media.
Our professionals in the media are no doubt familiar with the law of propaganda attributed to Nazi Joseph Goebbels (although it’s unlikely he ever actually said), “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”.
At a press conference called by the interim Comrades Marathon Association (CMA) Board on 26 August, interim CMA Chairman Jeff Minnaar used the term ‘cyber bullying’ repeatedly and began proceedings by reading a press release entitled, “Comrades Marathon addresses cyber bullying and harassment.”
Continue reading “Cyber Bully to you CMA (and the sad state of journalism)”
After a series of legal letters and communiques from a diverse group of concerned Comrades stakeholders (including former winners, CMA Board members and Comrades legends), we are pleased to report two major developments:
1. The interim CMA Board has officially withdrawn its opposition to the High Court case due to be heard on 23 October. The case is a result of the urgent High Court interdict that allowed non-KZN residents to speak and vote at the Special General Meeting (SGM) in August after KZNA issued a ‘locals only’ edict for the first time in the CMA’s 43 year history. This is expected to save Comrades over R1 million.
Continue reading “PRESS RELEASE: CMA ‘supergroup’ to engage with the interim Comrades Board”
A lot can change in a few months. On the last weekend of April, I attended the Durban International Marathon (which doubles as the South African Marathon Championships), as the guest of Steve Mkasi and KwaZulu Natal Athletics. Before accepting the invitation, I did double-check that he was happy that I would be writing things “as I saw it” and Mkasi graciously agreed, “Regarding coverage, please be as brutally frank with your experience. We need you to be as objective as possible. Therefore, we are happy for you to play your role unscripted.”
Continue reading “Durban International Marathon (where the meat is tougher than the marathon)”
After the 2023 Comrades cutoffs cost several hundred runners their medal, some changes were expected in 2024. What was the net positive gain? 487 athletes converted despair to glory. These 487 would have been cutoff in 2024 had the times not been made more lenient. However, what is surprising, is that there is still resistance from certain members of the Board to make sensible adjustments to cutoff times.
What follows are details and in depth analysis of the who, how and what of cutoffs at Comrades 2024…
Continue reading “Comrades 2024 Cutoffs: A lesson in gun control”
As someone who had plenty to say about what went wrong at Comrades 2023, it gives me great pleasure to write an article about what’s going right at Comrades 2024.
Much of the credit for the positive changes can be attributed to newly appointed Race & Operations Manager, Ann Ashworth, who left her career as an advocate to take up the position in November 2023. Under her leadership there’s renewed energy, innovation and an attention to detail that has been lacking for many years.
Continue reading “What’s New & Improved at Comrades 2024?”It is in times of great turmoil that you hope for a hero. Someone who will step forward to create sense and order from the chaos. Someone who will do the right thing when others cower and hide. Someone who will act with the maturity and integrity that their peers seem incapable of.
As William Shakespeare said, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” It was indeed another William who raised his hand amidst the turmoil of the Two Oceans cutoff saga. William Swartbooi is a current Two Oceans Board member and former chairperson of the organisation.
This William is part of a Board that has stumbled over sensibility, tripped over truthfulness and trampled on the hopes and dreams of the runners they are meant to serve. If William Shakespeare were alive today, no doubt the Bard of Avon would shake his head in dismay and observe on the current Board of Bergvliet, “Some are born stupid, some achieve stupidity, and some have stupidity thrust upon them.”
Continue reading “Two Oceans Board member (and former chairperson) calls cutoff issue ‘trivial matter’”
Executive Summary: If you make the final cutoff at Comrades 2024 by 1 second you will need to run at a ‘slowest possible pace’ of 7:20/km to finish under 12 hours. If back-of-the-pack runners can run faster than this over the last split, it means that the cutoff is wrong and will result in Comrades runners losing out on a medal. Data analysis from the last Up run in 2019 shows that over 1000 Vic Clapham medallists and hundreds of last 10 minute finishers ran faster than this. Therefore the current cutoff is badly calculated and will rob potentially hundreds of Comrades runners of a medal.
The good news is that we’ll see runners on the field during the last minute before cutoff this year. The bad news is that we’ll still be a few hundred runners short of a full field.
After the cutoff debacle at Comrades 2023, the Comrades 2024 cutoffs were always going to come under scrutiny. When the original Comrades 2024 cutoffs were published, several people pointed out some serious potential flaws. It was encouraging to see that new Race and Operations Manager, Ann Ashworth, listened to the feedback and took them back for review.
Continue reading “Comrades 2024: Polly Shortts cutoff likely to kill the dreams of hundreds”