Comrades is back: All you need to know about the 2022 race

Making a comeback to the domestic road running calendar this season, after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, organisers of the Comrades Marathon have tagged the 95th edition of the ultra-marathon with the slogan ‘The Return – Sishay’ Ubuya’.

While the country’s oldest race is back, however, the 2022 event introduces some significant changes.

Here’s all you need to know.

Where and when

Following a shift in its date for the first time in a while, the race will be held later in the year than it has ever been, on 28 August.

A ‘down’ run, the event starts at Pietermaritzburg City Hall and finishes at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban.

The 90.2km route will be the same – aside from a few potential detours due to roadworks – as the previous ‘down’ run in 2018.

How to enter

Entries will open at 10am on 23 March, but only to athletes who entered the 2020 Comrades Marathon before it was cancelled for the first time since 1945.

If the entry limit is not reached after the first window period, another window will be opened on 20 April.

All entrants will need to be vaccinated by 12 July in order to take part.

How to qualify

The qualifying window, which opened on 1 September last year, will close on 12 July.

There will be no changes to the qualifying times, with a sub-4:50 standard marathon required to participate in the event.

The substitution window period, for entrants who can’t compete and want to pass on their number, will be opened in June.

Prizes and medals

The first man and woman to finish the race will each receive R260 000, with additional R260 000 bonuses on offer for the men’s and women’s records held by David Gatebe (5:18:19) and Frith van der Merwe (5:54:43).

The total prize purse for elite runners will be more than R2.2 million.

Offering a unique reward for amateur participants, finishers will receive a commemorative medal which is larger than normal.