The first Comrades Marathon

On Empire Day, 24 May 1921, thirty-four runners set off from Pietermaritzburg for Durban, about 90 kilometres away. Forty-eight had entered. Vic Clapham, a First World War veteran, had started the race to remember the soldiers who did not come home. Sixteen men finished. Bill Rowan won in eight hours and fifty-nine minutes. The Comrades has been run almost every year since, alternating direction between the two cities.