03/06/2026
And position one goes to (drumroll) Elands Marathon proudly hosted by Nedbank Running Club Mpumalanga!!
COMRADES 2026: TOP 20 QUALIFIERS
After the 2025 Cape Town Marathon cancellation, the most popular qualifier title was up for grabs. Elands (a downhill flyer from Waterval Boven to Ngodwana in Mpumalanga) easily takes the gap and is the only marathon to break 1000 entrants. Jacaranda, 11th in 2025, were the marathon that capitalised the most on the CTM cancellation and end up second this year while Durban International maintains third position.
As one would expect, downhill marathons dominate the list. Other than Elands, Kaapsehoop, Tony Viljoen Border Masters, Loskop and Cango all feature. Border Masters also provides by far the fastest average qualifier time of 3h49 with Durban International (3h56) and Cango (3h57) the only others to break 4 hours. Irene 48k (adjusted to a marathon equivalent time of 4h24) is the slowest qualifier. The overall average qualifying time for Comrades 2025 entrants is 4:05:52 (slightly slower than the 4:03:29 of 2025).
Four out of ten finishers at Elands use the race as their qualifier but almost half the Vaal Marathon field (45%) use that race as their qualifier (which is impressive especially considering it was a bad weather year). On the flipside, just 7% of the Two Oceans 56k finishers use it as their qualifier although the race does move up from 9th in 2025 to 4th in 2026.
Gauteng dominates the table with 8 events in the Top 20. The only other provinces represented are KwaZulu Natal (4), Mpumalanga (4), Western Cape (3) and Eastern Cape (1). Benoni Harrier’s Johnson Crane Marathon retains their ‘Battle of Benoni’ title over their Benoni Northerns neighbours.
