The 2026 Comrades Marathon offered a combined prize purse of over R8.2-million in prize money and incentive bonuses, rewarding the top performing runners well for their race-day efforts. A prize purse of R5 790 400 was on offer across the top 10 positions, individual prizes, age categories, and team prizes for men and women, including prize money for the first South African finisher and top three KwaZulu-Natal athletes. For the first time, the prize money in the 70+ age category extended to second and third places, instead of just the first place in that category.
A further R2,420,000 was on offer for various records or time incentives, taking the total prize monies available to R8 210 400, which represents a 10% increase across all categories on the total prize monies on offer in the 2025 edition of the race.

MEN’S STANDOUTS

• George Kusche won the men’s race in 5:15:56, shattering Leonid Shvetsov’s 18-year-old Up Run Record of 5:24:49 (2008), and he also set a new Best Average Pace record for the Up Run of 3:40.99 per kilometre, bettering the 3:43.75/km set by Vladimir Kotov in 2000. Add in the prize money for being first South African over the line, his prize money comes to R2 322 000.
• Third home was SA’s Mbuti Mollo, in 5:21:31, who also claimed the Cell C Hot Spot prize for being first finisher through the Camperdown timing point, as well as the prize for first male novice finisher.
• The fourth and fifth finishers, Great Britain’s Alex Milne (5:22:29) and Japan’s Haruki Okayama (5:24:46) also dipped under the previous Up Run best time. Current 50km World Champion Milne continued moving up through the positions, having finished 15th, ninth and sixth in his three previous Comrades Marathons, while former 100km World Champion Okayama claimed a gold medal on debut at the Comrades Marathon.

• Sixth place went to 50-mile World Record-holder Charlie Lawrence of the USA, while SA’s Lloyd Bosman took seventh place after passing a cramping Nikolai Volkov just metres from the line. Volkov’s disappointment at having to be content with ninth position may have been slightly tempered by also claiming first place in the 40-49 age category
• Of the four South Africans amongst the top 10 men, Mollo, Bosman and Pulusa all claimed a gold medal in their Comrades Marathon debut runs.
• Of the top 10, four were all also gold medallists in 2025 – Wiersma, Volkov, Milne and Korytkin.
• In the team competitions, Nedbank Running Club KZN took top honours in the men’s elite category, while the men’s open category was won by Impala Marathon Club NWN, followed by Maxed Elite KZN. The Impala team also claimed the men’s 40-49 team prize.
• The youngest finisher was 20-year-old Ruan Uys, who clocked 7:35:56, while the trophy for the oldest finisher was once again presented to 84-year-old Johannes Mosehla. In finishing the race in 11:12:26, Mosehla also extended his own record as the oldest finisher in Comrades history. He claimed this record in 2023, aged 81, beating the record set by 80-year-old Wally Hayward in 1989, and has now rewritten the record books four years in a row.
  

  Steyn also set a new Best Average Pace for the Up Run, with 4:01.24 per kilometre to beat the previous best of 4:04.28/km that she set in 2024.

  WOMEN’S STANDOUTS

• Gerda Steyn cruised to her third Up Run victory and fifth Comrades Marathon title overall, with an her time of 5:44:53. This was well inside her own record for the women’s Up Run of 5:49:46, which she set in 2024. Like Kusche, Steyn also set a new Best Average Pace for the Up Run, with 4:01.24 per kilometre to beat the previous best of 4:04.28/km that she set in 2024. To add to her incredible day, Steyn was also the first woman through the Cell C Hot Spot in Camperdown, and she was part of the Hollywood Athletics Club team that claimed the Women’s Elite Team prize. With these additional prizes, her earnings for the day jumped to R2 388 192.
• Second over the line was Zimbabwean Nobukhosi Tshuma, who finished in 5:53:36 and improved greatly on her fifth-place finish in the 2024 edition of the race, having made terrific personal sacrifices to train for this race in Kenya.
• Third place went to SA’s Irvette van Zyl in 6:02:30, one position better than the fourth place she achieved in her Comrades Marathon debut last year, and she described the Up Run as one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
• Fourth was Kenyan Shelmith Muruiki (6:06:38), last year’s third-place finisher, who also took first place in the women’s 40-49 age category
• Great Britain’s Naomi Robinson was fifth in 6:07:55, and improving considerably on last year’s 15th place in her Comrades Marathon debut.
• Another Zimbabwean, Loveness Madziva, was sixth, also improving considerably from the 13th place she recorded in her previous out in the event in 2024
• The USA’s Courtney Olsen took seventh place and added a third consecutive gold medal to her Comrades Marathon haul.
• In eighth position, Dikiledi Majara gave Lesotho its first female gold medal in Comrades Marathon history
• In ninth place Jenet Mbhele extended her record as the first black South African woman to achieve four gold medals in the Comrades Marathon.
• 10th-placed Carla Molinaro of Great Britain, the current 50km World Champion, extended her Comrades Marathon gold collection to five.
• The first female novice to finish was another Brit, Stephanie McCall, who crossed the line in 17^th place in 6:52:10.
• Hollywood Athletics Club team took top honours in the women’s elite team category, while the open category was won by Ubora Athletics Club, with Nedbank Running Club CG finishing as runners-up. The same Ubora team also claimed the women’s 40-49 team prize.
• The youngest female finisher was 20-year-old Bailey O’Leary (Great Britain), who was home in 10:42:51
• The oldest was a 74-year-old visitor from the USA, Auzanne Koonce, who crossed the line in 10:43:24, less than a minute behind the youngest female finisher.

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