Russians are the fastest and the youngest in the “Comrades Marathon” This study should determine age, performance, nationality and participation over the years with runners participating in the “Comrades Marathon”, the ultra-marathon with the longest tradition and the highest number of finishers worldwide. We have analyzed 235'467 finishers (40'211 women and 195'256 men) between 1994 and 2017.For women and men, Russians were the fastest (12.55 ± 2,03 km / h or 12.24 ± 2,93 km / h) and Indians the slowest (7.87 ± 0.64 km / h and 7, 91 ± 0.60 km / h).In addition, the Russians were the youngest (33.9 ± 4.6 and 36.3 ± 5.9 years) and the Japanese the elders (49.3 ± 9.6 and 51.4 ± 12.3 years) runners.
In summary, runners from Russia were the fastest and recent in both sexes. The knowledge of the relationship between nationality to performance, age and investment trends of the finisher as well as the calendar years is of practical importance for ultra-runners and coaches working with them. The whole evaluation can be found under https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30583710/