George Kusche, a self-coached runner from Pretoria, won the 99th Comrades Marathon on Sunday and broke a course record that had stood since 2008. He covered the 85.777km up-run from Durban to Pietermaritzburg in 5 hours, 16 minutes and 6 seconds, eight minutes faster than Leonid Shvetsov’s 5:24:49 from 2008. The old record was set on a course about 800m shorter than this year’s route.
Kusche, 27, finished 12th on his Comrades debut last year despite vomiting near halfway. This time his stomach turned again over the closing kilometres, but he held his form and his pace.
“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Kusche told TimesLive. “I knew I was taking a gamble.”
A patient race, then a sudden move
Kusche stayed out of the lead group for most of the morning, according to reporting from IOL. Mashau Rasogo went out hard but pulled up with cramps inside the first hour. Jobo Khatoane of Lesotho and Samuel Moloi of Phantane AC took turns at the front before Maxed Elite’s Mbuti Mollo took control and held it deep into the race.
At the 60km mark, Mollo led by roughly seven minutes. By the time the leaders had 18.4km to go, that gap had collapsed to 1 minute 41 seconds. Kusche had been working his way through the field and opened a two-minute cushion on a chase pack that included defending up-run champion Piet Wiersma and former winner Edward Mothibi.
At the start of Little Pollys, Mollo’s legs gave way and he began walking. Kusche went past him with just over 10km left and ran solo to the finish at Scottsville Racecourse. The final stretch was painful to watch, but his form did not break.
A big payday and a Nedbank sweep
The Nedbank Running Club runner walked away with more than R2 million (about $123,000) in prize money, Sunday World reported. The breakdown: R925,000 (about $56,800) for the win, R242,000 (about $14,900) as first South African home, R605,000 (about $37,200) for beating the best time, and R550,000 (about $33,800) for the fastest average pace per kilometre.
Wiersma, the Dutch defending champion, came home second in 5:19:45. Mollo recovered enough to hold on for third in 5:21:40. All five top finishers ran inside Shvetsov’s old mark, a sign of how fast the front of the race moved.
Nedbank Running Club, coached by Nick Bester, dominated the men’s top 10. Foreign runners Alex Milne and Haruki Okayama took fourth and fifth. Lloyd Bosman, a former Two Oceans champion making his Comrades debut, finished seventh. Nedbank has held the men’s title every year the race has been held since 2019.
From the track to the Ultimate Human Race
Kusche has a 2:13 marathon personal best and recently made the leap from marathon to ultra distances. He studied actuarial science at a university in the United States and works as a data scientist. He was not on most pre-race favourites lists, which leaned toward Wiersma, three-time champion Tete Dijana, and Mothibi.
In the women’s race, Gerda Steyn won her fifth Comrades title and broke her own up-run record with a 5:44:33. Entsika Athletic Club’s Nobukhosi Tshuma was second in 5:53:36. Irvette van Zyl, chasing a podium finish she had spoken about for years, was third in 6:02:30.
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