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- Gerda Steyn holds SA record for women’s marathon (2:24:03)
- She has broken both of Frith van der Merwe’s 3-decade records
- Steyn smashed 96km Comrades record by over 9 minutes
South Africa’s female marathon record-holder is Gerda Steyn, who recorded a time of 2 hours 24 minutes and 0.3 seconds at the Valencia marathon in Spain in December 2023.
She also holds the record for the Comrades Ultramarathon, obliterating Frith van der Merwe’s long-standing 1989 record by more than 9 minutes last year, breaking the tape at 5:44:54 for the 87.7km down run.
Steyn was also the one to smash Frith’s 30-year-old Two Oceans record, which she did in 2019. She has since broken the record every time she’s run it. Her latest record-breaking run was in April, when she completed the 56km race in 3:26:54.
Frith and Gerda have both won the Two Oceans and the Comrades in the same year.
Steyn, who was born in 1990, only started running seriously in her mid-20s. Her first marathon was in Dubai in 2014.
— 31 May, 2024Subscribe to the weekly newsletter for more charts like this
