Dijana completes hat-trick of Comrades Down Run victories
Tete Dijana and Gerda Steyn were comfortable winners at this year’s 49th Down Run.
TETE Dijana won an incredible third Comrades Marathon Down Run title on Sunday (June 8).
The Nedbank Running Club athlete, who finished 14th at last year’s Up Run, exorcised those painful memories to make it a hat-trick of victories outside People’s Park in Durban.
Dijana now holds the 2022, 2023 and 2025 Down Run titles.
Last year’s Comrades winner Piet Wiersma, who’s earned the nickname ‘The Flying Dutchman’ finished in second while Nikolia Volkov finished in third place.
Meanwhile in the ladies race, Gerda Steyn won her fourth Comrades Marathon title.
Steyn, who represented South Africa at the Olympics last year, was all smiles as she crossed the finish line.
Russia’s Alexandra Morozova finished second to win her sixth gold medal. Shelmisth Muriuki became the first Kenyan woman to finish on the Comrades podium placing third.
This year’s Comrades Marathon, run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, is slightly longer than the 87.701km of the previous Down Run (2023), as the finish has been moved to outside People’s Park at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.
This is the 98th edition of the iconic ultra-distance marathon and the 49th Down Run overall.
A field of over 22 000 runners are hoping to finish this year’s Comrades Marathon before the final 12-hour cut-off gun is fired.
Click to subscribe to our newsletter – here
