The Comrades Marathon Association (CMA) Board has officially announced its decision to cancel the Comrades Marathon scheduled for 13 June 2021.

After having undertaken late last year to make announcements in mid-February regarding requirements for qualification and the staging of the 2021 Comrades Marathon, the decision to cancel will come as an enormous disappointment to tens of thousands of runners,

According to the organisers it has also been a tough call for them 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.

According to die CMA it and was both a moral and practical imperative given the ongoing uncertainty and unprecedented circumstances of the Coronavirus 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 said it was 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.

However, the good news is that the Comrades Centenary Celebrations are imminent. With the very first Comrades Marathon having been held on Tuesday, 24 May 1921, the CMA will launch its Centenary Celebrations in May this year.

 The CMA has also confirmed that its second Comrades Marathon virtual event will take place on Sunday, 13 June 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.

Details of the virtual event, the Comrades Centenary Celebrations and other innovative festivities which are in the pipeline will be shared in due course.

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