The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon team were on song at the Fifty Day Launch of the marathon, which was hosted by official vehicle partner’s, Mercedes-Benz’s flagship Century City showroom this week, with an upbeat presentation of symphonic proportions to an appreciative audience of past legends, race partners, beneficiaries and the media.
The announcement of world-class athletes who will line up at the start at Green Point on Sunday 19 October this year, the introduction of new and potentially game-breaking interventions to the start procedure and an update on the progress to secure Abbot World Marathon Major status were some of the highlights of the launch.
“I’m a little nervous but very excited about the next fifty days and seeing our expanded team being thrown in the deep end and working with passion to ensure we hit the targets on race day,” said General Manager, Liz Kruger.
Successful city marathons around the world pay attention to both elite athletes and the masses of local runners and Cape Town Marathon has a strong track record of doing both. And concerning the elite race CEO, Clark Gardner, broke the news that Cape Town will host the strongest field ever for a marathon on the African continent.
In Sydney to learn from this weekend’s World Marathon Major debut from the Australian city, Gardner spoke to the launch via a pre-recorded video. “With the help of our partners, the City of Cape Town, and the citizens of the Mother City, we achieved an unconditional pass for Stage 1 of our Abbott World Marathon Majors candidacy in 2024. In 2025, we are undertaking Stage 2 and to that end have secured the best elite marathon field in the race’s history,” Gardner boasted.
And few would gainsay Gardner. Lining up in Green Point in October will be athletes well capable of improving Abdisa Tola’s and Glenrose Xaba’s respective course records from last year (2:08:16 and 2:22:22). The men’s race will be graced by the following top-quality athletes:
- Ronald Korir (Kenya), who has a personal best of 2:04:22, set in finishing fourth in Berlin in 2023 and who has two other sub-2:06 marathons to his name in the past three years;
- Bethwel Chumba Kibet (Kenya), who finished second in Amsterdam in 2023 in 2:04:37, eight months after racing to 2:05:42 in Seville. Kibet placed a creditable 6th in last year’s Tokyo Marathon;
- Elroy Gelant (South Africa), who finished an outstanding 11th in the Olympic Marathon in Paris and broke the long-standing national record with his 2:05:36 in Hamburg in April this year; and
- Boki Kebede Asefa (Ethiopia), who placed second in the 2024 Amsterdam Marathon in 2:05:40
The elite women’s field is headlined by the queen of South African ultra-running, Gerda Steyn, who announced her return to Cape Town Marathon following her last race in 2021, when she ran a strong 2:26:25 for fourth place after setting the pace for much of the race. She has since taken her time down to 2:24:03 in Valencia, Spain, and will be looking for further improvement in Cape Town.
“I can’t wait for the 19th of October!” Steyn said via video. “And most of all to share the beautiful route with thousands of my fellow runners. The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon has always been close to my heart, and I feel so proud that we have such an amazing race here on South African soil.”
Steyn will be up against it to make the podium, given the quality of the field this year, with three athletes who have raced the marathon faster than 2 hr 20 min in the field:
- Winfridah Moseti (Kenya), who placed a close second in this year’s Tokyo Marathon in 2:16:56 and who looks more than capable of taking the Cape Town Marathon record into sub 2 hr 20 min territory;
- Angela Tanui (Kenya), who won the 2021 Amsterdam Marathon in 2:17:57; and
- Mare Dibaba (Ethiopia), who won the marathon at the world championships in 2015, has a marathon best of 2:19:59 and who pushed Glenrose Xaba all the way to the finish last year.
And although Xaba has not yet been announced to race this year, her mentor, Caster Semenya, whose foundation is one of the event’s beneficiaries, would not rule out the possibility of her charge defending her title in Cape Town.
On the Abbott World Marathon Major journey, Kruger admitted that they had failed for two years (2022 and 2023) on the size and quality of the field, parked cars on the route and ablution facilities, before passing unconditionally last year.
“Many people are telling us that this year is simply a ‘cut and paste’ and doing everything we did last year,” explained Kruger. “But it’s not like that. We have to pass 104 criteria and in a city like Cape Town there are always (new) challenges to be met.
“We have to pass for two successive years and if we succeed in October, Wednesday 5 November will be the day of the announcement and celebration. The WMM assessors wanted to make the announcement at New York Marathon (2 November) but we said we really wanted to stage this locally and celebrate with all our partners in Cape Town.
Shadi Chauke, Group Executive for Corporate Affairs and Sustainability at Sanlam and Tom Brown, Senior Brand Director at adidas, pledged their strong support for the marathon, its beneficiaries and participants.
“What began as a sponsorship in 2014 has grown into a strategic partnership aimed at positioning the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon as Africa’s first and only World Marathon Major,” said Chauke. “As a Pan-African organisation, we are deeply committed to unlocking the continent’s potential and creating meaningful impact that extends well beyond the finish line.
“Through partnerships with the Caster Semenya Foundation, CANSA, and WWF South Africa, we are advancing youth sports development, health, and environmental sustainability,” Chauke added. “We invite every runner to turn their race into a force for good through GivenGain.”
With 50 days to race day, 62 champions, fundraising for 18 charities, have already raised R198 000 via the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon’s official GivenGain portal.
“For adidas, our role as technical partner goes beyond supplying kit; it’s about supporting the culture of running in Africa,” Brown noted. “Run For Africa is central to that vision, rewarding runners with a R2 000 adidas voucher who start and finish the marathon in adidas shoes, and building pride in this community. The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon shows what’s possible when innovation meets purpose, from the race tee to the limited-edition Cape Town Marathon Boston 13. Every touchpoint is about leaving a legacy for runners well beyond the finish line.”
The finish line is a key focus area of the race, but it is at the start line where key changes will come into being this year, bringing Cape Town Marathon in line with many of the world’s biggest city marathons.
“Our main start will still be from the stadium as before,” explained Kruger, “but we will now include a second start in Beach Road, each start hosting five waves depicted in different colours. The two starts will merge after 400m and we will keep alternating from one start to the other.
“The fact that we are hosting the World Age Group Marathon Championships in 2026 moved us in this direction – we wanted to make the 2500 age-groupers expected to participate to feel special with their own start.”
Kruger went on to explain that she anticipated a major challenge in dealing with entries (for the 2026 race). One of the failed criteria for Cape Town Marathon in 2022 was the size of the field – they failed to reach the target of 15 000. This year the cap of 24 000 entries was reached 100 days before race day.
“We have been blown away at the increasing support for Cape Town Marathon, partly due to our enhanced social media campaign,” Kruger continued. “And it’s not just the marathon. Our 10km Peace run and the trail races are close to selling out and will likely sell out this week. We will need to go onto a ballot system for next year and we’re committed to ensuring that at least two thirds of the entries go to our local runners.
“Number are great, but it’s never been our aim to be the biggest. London and New York traditionally compete for that honour, with London just coming out on top this year with over 60 000 participants. Our aim is to offer the best runner experience. Any decision regarding the race is always tested against the question ‘does it enhance the runners’ experience?’”
Communications are all-important at an event as complex as the Cape Town Marathon and media and communications manager, Renate Bossi, promised to make ‘listening’ to stakeholders their mantra and the answer to their quest in raising the SCTM communications to the level of Team CTM’s ambition in order to take advantage of the unique selling proposition which the Cape Town Marathon provides.
“And we will continue to relate heartwarming stories from Cape Town Marathon participants of courage, persistence and community, of overcoming drug addiction and other hardships through running the race and those who found their community through running,” Bossi said.
Bossi was also proud to point out the success of Cape Town Marathon through numbers. “For example, our medal launch has gone from 10 000 views in 2022 to more than 100 000 views for this year’s launch and we have had more than 1.9 million views this year on our facebook site.”
