Piet Wiersma of the Netherlands exorcised his demons of an agonising second place finish at last year’s men’s race, to take victory in the Comrades Marathon on Sunday.
The 26-year-old crossed the finish line in an unofficial time of five hours 24 minutes and 56 seconds (5:24:56).
Dan Moselakwe was second in 5:25:41, Ethiopia’s Degefa Lafebo was third in 5:27:45.
Wiersma made a decisive move at Polly shorts as he opened up a gap with around 40 minutes of running left in the race.
In the latter stages of the race after the four hour mark, the main contenders were whittled down to a group of four Nedbank runners. Wiersma, Lafebo, Tete Dijana and Moselakwe.
Piet Wiersma is starting to break away from the pack as he aims for a first win at the Comrades 👀![CDATA[]]>👇
— SuperSport 🏆 (@SuperSportTV) June 9, 2024
📺 Stream #Comrades2024 live: https://t.co/rM90YyQxaw pic.twitter.com/2pvAXZJqfj
2023 agony
Dijana of course, took top honours last year - beating Wiersma by three seconds - to bag his second win in a row.
At the 4:30 mark though, defending ‘up’ run champion Edward Mothibi made his move on the lead group. A few minutes later, Joseph Manyedi was the one to join the lead pack as the group grew in numbers to five.
At the halfway mark, Russian Aleksei Beresnev held the lead as he made his way through Drummond in 2:40:51. That put him more than four minutes ahead of the next runner.
Jobo Khatoane of Lesotho was the early leader in the men’s race, before he started walking as he approached Drummond.
In the women’s race, Gerda Steyn hit the front early and gradually increased her lead. At the halfway mark of the race, Steyn was 117th overall but after 4:45 she had powered through to 46th as her record run gathered steam. At this point, Steyn was on track to better her own ‘up run’ record by seven minutes.
It’s been a phenomenal year for Steyn as she claimed victories in record times at the Two Oceans Marathon Om die Dam and the Vaal Marathon.