George Kusche and Gerda Steyn didn't just win the 99th Comrades Marathon on Sunday — they obliterated records and banked over R2 million each.
Kusche finished the 'Up' run from Durban to Pietermaritzburg in 5 hours, 15 minutes and 56 seconds. That smashed Leonid Shvetsov's 18-year-old record of 5:24:49 set in 2008. He also set a new Best Average Pace for the Up run, averaging 3:40.99 per kilometre — beating Vladimir Kotov's 2000 mark of 3:43.75.
Steyn cruised to her third Up run victory and fifth Comrades title overall in 5:44:53. That was well inside her own record of 5:49:46 from 2024. She also set a new Best Average Pace for women, with 4:01.24 per kilometre.
The Comrades Marathon Association (CMA) confirmed the winners were feted on Monday morning at the annual Champions Prizegiving Breakfast at the Southern Sun Elangeni Hotel in Durban. The total prize purse hit R8.21 million — a 10% increase on 2025.
Kusche's earnings jumped to R2,322,000 after adding the prize for first South African finisher. Steyn took home R2,388,192, which included the Cell C Hot Spot prize for being first woman through Camperdown and her Hollywood Athletics Club team's elite prize.
Second in the men's race was Dutchman Piet Wiersma, the 2024 winner and defending Up run champion, finishing in 5:19:36. South Africa's Mbuti Mollo came third in 5:21:31, also claiming the Cell C Hot Spot prize and the first male novice finisher award.
Fourth and fifth finishers — Great Britain's Alex Milne (5:22:29) and Japan's Haruki Okayama (5:24:46) — also dipped under the previous Up run best time. Milne, the current 50km world champion, has improved from 15th, ninth and sixth in his three previous Comrades. Okayama, a former 100km world champion, claimed gold on debut.
Sixth place went to 50-mile world record-holder Charlie Lawrence of the USA. South Africa's Lloyd Bosman took seventh after passing a cramping Nikolai Volkov just metres from the line. Volkov settled for ninth but won the 40-49 age category.
Vasilii Korytkin took eighth, and Tebogo Pulusa was 10th. Of the four South Africans in the top 10, Mollo, Bosman and Pulusa all earned gold medals on their Comrades debut. Wiersma, Volkov, Milne and Korytkin were also gold medallists in 2025.
In the women's race, Zimbabwe's Nobukhosi Tshuma finished second in 5:53:36, a big improvement on her fifth-place finish last year.
Nedbank Running Club KZN won the men's elite team competition. Impala Marathon Club NWN took the men's open category, followed by Maxed Elite KZN. Impala also claimed the men's 40-49 team prize.
The youngest finisher was 20-year-old Ruan Uys, who clocked 7:35:56. The oldest finisher trophy went to 84-year-old Johannes Mosehla, who finished in 11:12:26. Mosehla extended his own record as the oldest finisher in Comrades history — he first claimed that record in 2023 at age 81, beating Wally Hayward's 1989 record set at age 80.
For the first time, prize money in the 70+ age category extended to second and third places, not just first.