116 Russian athletes to run in Comrades Marathon, says race director
Comrades Marathon Association race director Rowney James says Russian athletes will once again be allowed to participate in the long-distance race on Sunday.
The association briefed the media on Thursday ahead of this weekend’s down run between Pietermaritzburg and Durban.
Rowney said a total of 116 Russian athletes will participate in the race.
"Just regarding the participation of the Russians, World Athletics put out a communique roughly about a month and a half ago to say that Russian Athletes are allowed to participate in athletics again. If it's a world athletics-sanctioned event, there are still specific criteria they need to adhere to. Comrades marathon is not a world athletics accredited event and the reason for that is it's not a world athletics recognised distance. So the rules pertaining to Russian participation did not apply to the Comrades. 78 men and 38 women are participating which is a total of 116."
Twenty-five athletes have been disqualified from this week's race after supplying false qualifying information.
Rowney believes the various clubs should take responsibility for their members.
"It's not a question of making the basket bad from that point of view. What we want is that the clubs must take action against those members. It took us a full two days to work through 25 athletes that were disqualified."
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