Punters profit as favourites take the win at Comrades Marathon 2025
This year’s edition featured the largest-ever prize pool in the history of the competition.
South Africa.- The 2025 Comrades Marathon has ended, with early finishers claiming their share of the record prize pool and spectators and bettors who backed the right runners smiling to the bank.
First held on May 24, 1921, the Comrades Marathon is the oldest and largest ultramarathon in the world. Spanning nearly 88 kilometres (55 miles), the ultramarathon occurs every year in South Africa between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg.
This year’s edition occurred on Sunday, June 8, 2025, and featured a prize pool offering of R7,605,000 (€366,313), the largest ever in the history of the competition, almost doubling the previous year’s total of R4,092,000 (€197,101). The first-place winners received R874,000, with prizes going down to 10th place. Athletes also earned extra bonuses for breaking course records and hot spot wins.
Legal wagering was permitted on the race for the first time this year, and South African Gerda Steyn was the clear favourite among fans and bookmakers in the women’s race, with odds of 6-10 a day before the event. Steyn holds the down-run record of 5:44:54 set in 2023 and continued her dominance with a record sixth straight Two Oceans Marathon win in 2025.
As expected, Steyn won the 2025 Comrades Marathon with a finish time of 5:51:19, marking her fourth victory in the event. 2022 champion Alexandra Morozova finished in second place in 5:55:56, while Shelmith Muriuki, a Kenyan, finished third in 6:07:56 and made history as the first black woman to take a podium spot in the race. Other early finishers include Irvette van Zyl (6:11:35), Dominika Stelmach (6:12:02) and Carla Molinaro (6:13:03)
In the men’s race, Tete Dijana claimed his third Comrades Marathon title in a closely contested finish with a record winning time of 5:25:28. He was followed by defending champion Piet Wiersma in 5:25:33 and Nikolai Volkov in third place with 5:29:42. Edward Mothibi secured fourth spot in 5:31:41, followed by Joseph Manyedi (5:32:09) and Alex Milne (5:34:08) rounding off the top six.
