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Comrades Goes Live on Wednesday to Launch the 100th Race

Comrades Goes Live on Wednesday to Launch the 100th Race

The official launch of the 100th Comrades Marathon streams live on YouTube at 10:00 SAST on Wednesday, 19 August 2026. The CMA has said it will cover entry fees and the entry process, the official entry cap, the centenary campaign slogan, race day information and prize money. If the 100th is your goal, this is the morning the practical details finally arrive.

The short version

The Comrades Marathon Association is going live to launch the 100th Comrades Marathon, and it happens this week.

Set a reminder now. This is a working broadcast rather than a ceremony: it is where the numbers that decide your 2027 land.

What actually gets revealed

The CMA has published the running order, and every item on it is something runners have been waiting on since the date was confirmed:

  • Entry fees and the entry process. How much, and how you get in.
  • The official entry cap. The number of places available for the centenary.
  • The 2027 campaign slogan. The winner of the community competition.
  • Race day general information and prize money. The logistics, and what is on the table up front.

Everything above has been an open question until now. Our centenary piece in July had to say that entry details had not been announced yet, and that assuming you could get in late was a bad idea. Wednesday is when that sentence gets replaced with real numbers.

Why the entry cap is the line to watch

Of the four items, the cap and the entry process are the ones that change behaviour.

The 2026 edition capped at 22,000 and filled with a record qualification rate. That was an ordinary year. This is a centenary down run, the direction the field loves most, on a race that started with 34 runners from Pietermaritzburg in 1921. Demand will not resemble a normal year, and a cap that sounds generous in the abstract can disappear quickly when a hundred years of history is the draw.

So listen for two things specifically: the number itself, and whether entries open in phases, by qualification, or first come first served. Those mechanics decide whether you need to be at a keyboard on a particular morning or simply need a qualifier in hand.

The slogan belongs to someone watching

There is one item on the list that is not logistics.

The centenary slogan competition closed on 17 July 2026, open to everyone from green number legends to first timers, with entrants asked to submit a phrase, the language it came from, and what it means. On Wednesday the CMA announces which one it picked.

Somebody in the South African running community wrote the words that will sit on a hundred years of the Ultimate Human Race. If you sent one in, this is your broadcast.

What to do before Wednesday

The launch will tell you how to enter. It will not do the qualifying for you, and that part has a clock on it.

Recent editions have required a standard marathon inside the qualifying window, sub-4:50 in recent years, and South Africa's qualifier season peaks from October to December. That is close enough that the marathon which gets you to the centenary start line is probably a race you have not entered yet.

Two things worth doing while you wait for the stream:

  • Find your qualifying race and get it on the calendar before the good ones fill.
  • Build the plan for it: pick the marathon, set a goal time, and get a week by week schedule with tempo work, deload weeks and a benchmark time trial along the way.

If you are still deciding what to aim for on the day itself, the medal ladder is the honest place to start, and the official training plans run from roughly 850km of total training for a Vic Clapham to more than 3,200km for gold.

Dates to diarise

  • Wednesday, 19 August 2026, 10:00 SAST: official 2027 race launch, live on YouTube
  • October to December 2026: SA marathon season, prime time for your qualifier
  • Sunday, 13 June 2027: the 100th Comrades Marathon, 89km down run, Pietermaritzburg to Durban

Wednesday, 19 August, 10:00 SAST. Entry fees, the cap, the process and the slogan, all in one broadcast. Subscribe to the Comrades YouTube channel so the reminder finds you, and tag the training partner who is going to want in.