George Kusche runs 5:15:56 at Comrades, nine minutes inside an 18-year-old up run record
Kusche passed Mbuti Mollo with 10 km left on the climb to Pietermaritzburg; the top five all beat Leonid Shvetsov's 2008 mark of 5:24:49.
Photograph: runners at Camperdown during the 2024 Comrades Marathon up run, by Upjav, CC0, via Wikimedia CommonsGeorge Kusche won the 99th Comrades Marathon on Sunday in 5:15:56. The race ran uphill this year, 85.777 km from Durban City Hall to the Scottsville Racecourse in Pietermaritzburg, and the up run record had been Leonid Shvetsov's 5:24:49 from 2008. Kusche, a South African running his second Comrades after finishing 12th last year, took nearly nine minutes off it. The top five all beat the old mark.
It was 21,633 starters at five in the morning. Mahau Rasogo led early and dropped out after Pinetown. Samuel Moloi led for more than 25 km before stepping off after 50 km, and Mbuti Mollo took over. Kusche surged on Inchanga, was second by 57 km, and passed Mollo with less than 10 km to go, then built a lead of nearly four minutes. Piet Wiersma of the Netherlands came past Mollo in the final 2 km for second in 5:19:36. Mollo held third in 5:21:31, Britain's Alex Milne was fourth in 5:22:29 and Haruki Okayama of Japan fifth in 5:24:46. Charlie Lawrence was the first American, sixth in 5:27:08.
The organiser puts Kusche's average pace at 3:40.99 per km, inside the 3:43.75 Vladimir Kotov ran in 2000. The win, the first-South-African bonus, the record incentive and a pace bonus added up to R2,322,000. 18,523 runners finished.
The shortest up run on record, by 133 m, and still 86 km uphill. Kusche said in the organiser's release that Comrades is extremely hard mentally. Nine minutes off the record says he handled it.
Sources: Comrades Marathon; iRunFar; Wikipedia; eNCA.
