HISTORY
RACE RESULTS
Date | Friday, 24 May |
Weather | Cool and clear all day. |
Start Venue/Time | Durban City Hall / 6:00 |
Finish Venue | Alexandra Park Athletic and Cycle Track (The Duck Pond) |
Time Limit | 11 Hours |
Approx. Distance | 54 M |
Entries | Unknown |
Starters | 23 |
Finishers – Total | 10 |
Men | 10 |
Medals – Gold | 6 |
Silver | 4 |
% Finishers / Starters | 43.4 |
THE MENS RACE
The world had already been at war for 9 months, when the field set off from Durban in bright moonlight. A number of men, who were expected to enter, had withdrawn and left to join their units at training camps in various centres around the country. This resulted in a small field of 23 answering the starter’s pistol.
Liege Boulle jumped into an early lead along West Street, but when the field ran up Huntley’s Hill, the favourite, Allen Boyce, had gone to the front setting a cracking pace. He arrived in Pinetown in 1h 27m, which was 3 minutes faster than Hardy Ballington in 1936, when he set the Best Time for the Up Run. It was clear that he was after not only a victory, but the Best Time as well. Following him through the town was Dymock Parr and Boulle.
Maintaining his pace, Boyce stretched his lead, at Gillitts, to 8 minutes over Parr, who had moved into 2nd place. Despite the terrific pace, Boyce never slowed down and led through the midway point at Drummond, with a lead of nearly 4 miles, where the order was Boyce (3h 20m 40s), Parr (3h 49m 50s), Max Trimborn (4h 2m 20s), Edgar Marie (4h 8m 30s) and Gordon Morrison (4h 16m).
Boyce went up Inchanga so strongly, it seemed that a new Best Time was well within his grasp, as he invariably improved over the second half of the race.
With the distance between himself and Parr increasing all the time, even though he found difficulty in maintaining the fast pace he set himself, he struggled on the section between Cato Ridge and Camperdown where he went passed the checkpoint in 4h 52m; 3 minutes behind Ballington’s time, 2 two years before. A new Best Time now required a supreme effort and, although he ran effortlessly up Polly Shortt’s, it was clear that it would elude him.
Nevertheless, he had finally achieved his ambition of winning the Comrades Marathon. His time of 6h 39m 23s was just 6m 57s outside the Best Time.
Parr was next to finish in 8h 29m 51s, with Morrison 3rd in 8h 55m 21s. Boyce’s margin of victory (1h 50m 28s) remains the greatest winning distance in history.
RESULT
1st | Allen Boyce | South Africa |
6h 39m 23s |
2nd | Dymock Parr | South Africa | 8h 29m 51s |
3rd | Gordon Morrison | South Africa | 8h 55m 21s |
4th |
Max Trimborn |
South Africa | 9h 03m 28s |
5th | Edgar Marie | South Africa | 9h 06m 07s |
6th | P.L. Christie | South Africa | 10h 12m 35s |
7th | Willie Amron | South Africa | 10h 19m 45s |
8th | P. Freedman | South Africa | 10h 38m 04s |
9th | H. McIntosh | South Africa | 10h 55m 23s |
10th | T.D. Stobie | South Africa | 10h 59m 18s |