It was an unreal day of running at the Comrades Marathon on Sunday as records fell, with Tete Dijana and Gerda Steyn prevailing in record time in the Pietermaritzburg to Durban race.
DURBAN – It was an unreal day of running at the Comrades Marathon on Sunday as records fell like flies being swatted with a heavily-folded newspaper.
Three new best times of the down run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban were recorded, with both the men, women and men’s masters records getting broken in style inside the Hollywoodbets Kingsmead Stadium.
Tete Dijana, Gerda Steyn and Wayne Spies all ran faster than times that were previously thought to be unbreakable.
And while this year”s race distance was a little shorter than when the previous times were set, such was the time these runners ran that they would have rewritten the record books even in the original distances.
Dijana smashed David Gatebe’s seven-year-old Comrades Marathon down run record to smithereens as he defended the title he won last year.
The 35-year-old from Signal Hill Village in Mafikeng, North West clocked a 5:13:58 to slice nearly six minutes off Gatebe’s 5:18:19 from 2016.
Dijana beat off a strong surprise challenge from his Nedbank Running Club international teammate Pieter Wiersma, coming in just two seconds off the Dutchman who chased him at the finish line.
It was yet another Nedbank one-two-three, just like last year, with 2019 champion and last year’s runner up Edward Mothibi closing off the podium position, also under the previous record.
There was also another record for Coach Dave Adams’ dominant ‘Happy Bunch’ as 50-year-old Wayne Spies lived up to his promise of breaking Vladimir Kotov’s 5:48:12 from back in 2012 by running in at 5:42:0.
But the biggest cheer of the morning was of course reserved for South Africa’s road running darling Steyn who shattered Frith van der Merwe’s 5:54:43 by, wait for it, nearly 10 minutes.
Steyn crossed the finish line in 5:44:54, way ahead of second-placed Adele Broodryk who crossed the line in in 5:56:26.
