Comrades Marathon 2021 cancelled in centenary year over Covid-19 fears

The Comrades Marathon Association Board has announced its decision to cancel the Comrades Marathon scheduled for June 13, 2021.

The decision to cancel will no doubt come as an enormous disappointment to tens of thousands of runners; and has also been a tough call for CMA organisers to make, in what is the world-renowned race’s centenary year.

This decision comes in the wake of engagements with KwaZulu-Natal Athletics, Athletics South Africa, the National Coronavirus Command Council, members of the medical fraternity and governmental departments; and was both a moral and practical imperative given the ongoing uncertainty and unprecedented circumstances of the Ccoronavirus pandemic, the onset of a second wave and a significantly more infectious variant of Covid-19, as well as the ongoing National State of Disaster and its associated restrictions.

The CMA Board is determined that the health, safety and welfare of Comrades runners, officials, volunteers and the general public remains paramount even after having held out hope that the nation’s most unifying road running event would have been able to be hosted in June.

The impending third wave of Covid-19 which is widely anticipated around April to June this year, has ended any such hopes and makes the hosting of any mass event in the near future highly unlikely.

With the very first Comrades Marathon having been held on Tuesday, May 24,1921, the CMA will launch its Centenary Celebrations on Monday, May 24, 2021.

The CMA also confirmed that its second Comrades Marathon virtual event will take place on Sunday, June 13, 2021, in which runners will be able to run in any location, outside in their garden, or neighbourhood, all at their own pace, in a similar fashion to last year’s successful inaugural Race the Comrades Legends which saw 43 788 participants from more than 100 nations uniting in a single virtual event.